Hostage Situation
by ack1308
Summary: When Amy Dallon encounters someone from her distant past, her life will change forever.
1. Chapter 1

**Hostage Situation**

* * *

 _1) This story is set in the Wormverse, which is owned by Wildbow. Thanks for letting me use it._

 _2) I will follow canon as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, then I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations._

 _3) I will accept any legitimate criticism of my work. However, I reserve the right to ignore anyone who says "That's wrong" without showing how it is wrong, and suggesting how it can be made right. Posting negative reviews from an anonymous account is a good way to have said reviews deleted._

* * *

 _[A/N: This story idea suggested by Takao-Kun.]_

 _[A/N 2: This story has been revised after much perusal of constructive criticism.]_

* * *

Part One: Trigger

* * *

I huddled among the other hostages. The majority of the villains had just exited the bank to take on the heroes outside, and they weren't watching us any more.

"Hey," muttered a guy beside me. He was tall and well-built, and probably thought that he was pretty tough. "There's only the one left. She doesn't look like much. If we took her out, that's gotta help the heroes, right?"

 _Idiot. The girl in the bug costume said that the spiders would know if we moved or did anything stupid._

"I wouldn't try it," I murmured back. "I think she can sense through her spiders. Do you _want_ to get bitten?"

"Well, we can't just sit here and do nothing."

" _You_ can sit here and do nothing. _I'm_ going to do something about this."

"You?" he asked, looking me up and down. "What can _you_ do?"

"I'm Panacea, of New Wave," I retorted. "Now shut up and let me think."

Thankfully, he did, allowing me to concentrate on what I was sensing through my powers. The fact that she could sense what was happening to her spiders was something I could work on. I knew exactly where each of the black widow spiders was on me – despite the demands on my time, having biokinetic powers can be _very_ useful on occasion – and I tapped into their bodies, their internal processes.

 _They're being controlled. Can I use that?_

One part of their brains was working overtime; I studied it. Signals were coming in and out; I couldn't decipher them, but they seemed to be saying, _hold still, don't bite. Hold still, don't bite_.

Before I took my next step, I breathed deeply. _Spider brains aren't human brains. And I'm doing this for a good reason._ Then I _adjusted_ their tiny brains, so that what they saw, what they felt, wasn't what they sent back. _Like that old movie trope, hacking a security camera to send back a loop of the last five minutes._

At least, I _hoped_ it worked that way. For good measure, I added a degree of static; if she thought something in the fight was messing with her powers, all the better.

I peeked toward the front of the bank. The bug girl was still peering out the window, trusting in her spiders to keep us under control. The other one – Tattletale? - was somewhere in the back. Nobody was watching. _Good._

Carefully, trying not to make any noise, I circulated among the other hostages. They watched me, eyes wide, as I held my finger to my lips. Touched skin to skin, to find where on their bodies the spiders were hiding. Touched each spider and paralysed it. Its brain would send back _all fine here, all fine here,_ but it would be incapable of doing absolutely anything else, ever. This would kill it in about half an hour, but I really didn't care.

Once I had done everyone, my heart thundering so loudly in my ears that I was certain the people _outside_ could hear it, I pointed them toward the stairs upward. Slowly, cautiously, they began to move. For myself, I wasn't about to run away. I could see where a fire extinguisher was hooked on the wall. _I'm not scared of you,_ I told myself.

As I unhooked it from the wall, I recalled the last time I had told someone that.

* * *

 **Three Weeks Previously**

* * *

 _Fred muttered a curse as the stone skittered away from his foot. He was definitely not as good at this as he had been, twenty years ago. Worse, the teenage girl ahead of him had heard the noise._

" _Who's there?" she called out, eyes searching the darkened street. "Come out where I can see you."_

 _ **Screw it,**_ _he told himself, and stumped into view, leaning on his cane. "It's okay, kid," he assured her. "I'm not going to hurt ya. There's no reason to be scared."_

" _I'm not scared of you," she replied; probably not altogether truthfully, in his estimation. Still, she had grit enough to hold her head up and look him in the eye. "What are you doing, following me?"_

" _Makin' sure you get there an' back safe an' sound," he told her, nodding toward where the hospital bulked in the distance._

" _Wait … you're_ _ **escorting**_ _me?" she asked, apparently taken somewhat aback by the notion._

" _Somethin' like that," he agreed. "Now, I don't know what's gotten into ya that ya gotta get up an' walk to th' hospital in th' middle of th' night, but if you're gonna do it, I'm gonna make sure ya get there okay."_

" _It's just something I've got to do," she replied shortly. "What's your name, anyway? And why are you doing this?" She started off toward the distant building; he walked alongside her._

" _Something I gotta do, too," he replied. "Name's Fred. Fred Jones."_

" _What, like in that cartoon show?"_

" _Yeah, like that." He snorted. "Couple guys made the mistake of calling me Scooby, once upon a time. Didn't happen twice."_

 _She looked him up and down critically. "I would think those days are long past for you, uh, Mr Jones."_

" _Don't make the mistake of thinkin' I'm totally helpless, little miss," he retorted, just a little sharply. "I might be old, but I still got my self-respect."_

" _I -" She paused. "I'm sorry."_

" _Don't be," he assured her. "I know I don't look much. But I can still take care of myself."_

" _And I appreciate you looking out for me," she told him._

* * *

 _When they arrived at the hospital, Amy paused just inside the main doors and smiled at the old man. He had made the last half-mile of her walk quite pleasant, with general conversation and the occasional acerbic observation on superheroes and villains of the day. She still didn't know quite why he had chosen to walk with her, but she had enjoyed it._

" _Thank you," she stated. "Like I said, I appreciate it. Can you tell me now why you're doing it?"_

" _Depends," was the answer. "Care to tell me why a little thing like you is walking to the hospital in the middle of the night to heal people?"_

 _She wrapped her arms around herself and looked at the ground. "Because I have to," she mumbled. "Because they need me. Because I can't sleep for thinking about people I'm not helping."_

 _He nodded, slowly. "Fair call," he mused. "Dunno that I'd think that way, but it's you, not me."_

" _All right," she responded, a little annoyed. "I answered your question. How about you answer mine?"_

" _Oh, that's easy," he replied. "I'm doing it for your dad."_

 _And with that, he winked, turned away, and walked out through the doors, leaving her staring after him._

* * *

" - about your father," Tattletale told me, with a smirk.

I shook my head with a smile of my own, cautious of the knife at my throat. "Too late, bitch. I already know all about him. And I know why he gave me up. So you can give up right now, and my sister _might_ not break every bone in your body."

She sagged slightly. " … fuck. You _do_ know. Dammit. I was hoping not to have to use this one."

"What one?" I asked incautiously.

"The _other_ big secret," she told me, her grin widening again. God, I wanted to wipe that grin off of her face with my fire extinguisher. "You know the one. And you know what'll happen if I say it out loud."

I flicked a glance at my sister. The girl I loved, utterly and hopelessly. Who I could never let know about it, for fear of the rejection, the disgust, that she would surely feel for me.

But I couldn't let these villains just _escape._ She would know that she could use that secret on me, _every single time._

But I couldn't let the secret get out. _They escape, they get captured later, and I keep the secret._

Vicky was looking at me. "What's she talking about?"

"I -"

* * *

 _Amy stumbled from the elevator, bone-tired. She'd been at it for hours, healing sick kids in Pediatrics, cancer patients in Oncology, and most everyone in the ICU. Except the brain injuries; it had almost physically hurt her to leave them, but she couldn't, wouldn't, dare. That risk was something that she simply would not take._

 _And all the time, she had been puzzling over the strange old man called Fred Jones, who claimed to be acting in the name of her father. That he could be referring to Mark Dallon, she had dismissed almost at once; if Flashbang wanted her escorted, he would do it himself. He didn't even know of her trips to the hospital, that she was aware of._

 _So it was her birth father he was referring to; the mysterious person who had turned her over to the Brockton Bay Brigade, just before it became New Wave. He was a supervillain, she was pretty sure. Or maybe she had thought someone had told her that once, and it had stuck. Once, when she was young, she had gotten curious, and asked Carol about the man with the long hair she remembered from way back, and Carol had told her to stop asking questions and to go and play. It didn't take long for her to realise that asking questions like that was not something a Good Girl did, and she wanted very badly to be a Good Girl, and get the hugs and praise that Vicky did._

 _Once she gained her powers, and became a member of New Wave, she had realised that she could go to the PRT and request the information; ask when exactly she had been adopted by the Dallons, and work out by process of elimination exactly who her father was. But by that time, she had no real desire to know; whether it was the influence of Carol's opinion on the subject, or just a loss of interest, she wasn't sure. Or maybe she didn't want to confirm that her father was actually a supervillain; as a superhero, that could be quite embarrassing if it got out._

 _A rich, enticing smell crossed her nostrils, making her mouth water. She looked over to the benches near the main entrance, and there sat Fred, in his disreputable overcoat. He had a takeout box on his lap, and another beside him._

" _Hey there, kid," he greeted her. "Hungry? That one's yours."_

* * *

 _There was a smoking area outside the hospital doors, with tables and chairs under umbrellas. Fred followed the girl to the nearest one, and creakily lowered himself on to the plastic chair. He picked at his food – there was a rather good Chinese store next to the hospital – while watching her dig into hers._

" _Christ, kid," he asked. "How long since you had a proper meal?"_

" _Oh, uh, yesterday, I think," she admitted. "Carol doesn't cook much, and Mark mostly forgets. So we usually get takeout or something." She paused and eyed him warily. "You said you were doing this for my father."_

" _I did an' I am," he told her. "I mean, he doesn't_ _ **know**_ _I'm doin' it, but I'm doin' it anyway." His eyes twinkled. "Do you want to know who he is?"_

" _I, uh -" she hesitated. "I was told he was a supervillain, and he was arrested."_

 _He snorted. "Yeah, that's true. More to it than that. He got Birdcaged."_

" _Okay, so who_ _ **was**_ _he?"_

 _He fixed her with a beady eye. "_ _ **Is**_ _, kid. At least, I figure he's still kicking. If anyone can survive that hellhole, it's him. An' since you asked, his name's Marquis."_

 _Her eyes widened. "I've heard of him."_

" _So've a lot of folks, kid. He was one of_ _ **the**_ _big names in the villain game, back in the day. Firm but fair to work for, too."_

 _Her head jerked up. "You_ _ **worked**_ _for him?"_

" _Hell yes," he declared proudly. "From ninety-two on." A sigh of nostalgia escaped him. "Now_ _ **there**_ _was a villain with style. None of these racist pricks, excuse my French. None of these druggies. You worked for him, you did the job, you got recognised."_

" _But … he was a_ _ **villain,**_ _" she protested, frowning._

" _Sure he was," he agreed readily. "But not the same type of villain as these other jerks you get. Do you know, Jack Slash came to town one time, tried his damnedest to make him break his code against killing women? Could not do it. Failed utterly. Marquis told that psycho bastard where to shove it, and told him to get the hell out of the Bay. He went, too."_

" _Wow." She was staring at him. "Really? That was my dad?"_

" _Sure as hell," he confirmed. "He mighta been a bad guy, your dad, but he wasn't a_ _ **bad**_ _bad guy. Some of those villains, they'd get a wild hair up their ass, turn around and decide that their minions are plotting to overthrow them. Put the fear of God into them with a purge. Blood on the walls. Marquis was never like that. If he wanted you gone, you just … disappeared. You were never seen again."_

 _She shivered. "That's_ _ **horrible**_ _."_

" _You'd think so, wouldn't you?" he mused. "But it wasn't really like that. If you wanted out, he let you go. Not a word. But if things went the other way, he'd make it so no-one ever saw you again, sure, but he had a thing against hurting women and kids. So he'd make sure that some cash went to the wife and kiddies, if they had any. Enough to tide 'em over."_

" _Still not a good thing," she pointed out. "Murder's still murder."_

 _He snorted. "And you're gonna try to tell me that you've never seen anyone you don't think would be better off dead?" Her silence was all the answer he needed. "Yup. See, way I see it? Heroes and villains, they're all the same, deep down. It's just that the villains are a tiny bit more honest about the way they do things. They've got more at stake, so they've got to stay more in control."_

* * *

"Those villains were out of control!"

I wished that my mother – my _foster_ mother – would tone it down a bit. The painkillers I had been given were working, but not as thoroughly as I would have liked, and my head was still aching abominably. I'd suffered a mild concussion from the baton blow to the side of the head, but it had only knocked me out for a moment. _At least Tattletale didn't spill the beans._

"Mom, I'm _okay,"_ insisted Vicky, but a little less strongly than I would have liked. "Amy healed me. I'm good now."

"You don't _look_ good," Carol Dallon declared. "You look positively peaked." She turned to me. "Some poison effects can be subtle. Are you sure you got it all?"

I nodded. "Yes. I double-checked. No allergic reactions, no toxic shock. Physically, she's fine."

"It's true," confirmed Vicky. "It's not the bug bites. It's the surprise, you know? I'm used to being invulnerable. Nothing touches me. And then that Tattletale bitch figures out a way around my powers. And the next thing I know, ten million bugs are biting me." She shivered involuntarily.

"Still, I think you should get some bed rest," Carol insisted. "There might be long term effects involved." She nodded to me. "And maybe you should lie down, too."

Still fussing over her daughter – her _real_ daughter, I thought mutinously – she led her from the room. I was left alone in the living room.

My hands clenched into fists. _You could at least_ _ **pretend**_ _to be my real mom._

* * *

 **Two Weeks Previously**

* * *

" _So what happened to my real mom? Was she a supervillain, too?"_

 _Fred chuckled warmly. Ever since the kid had rumbled him, he hadn't had to sneak around, and he was able to walk her to and from the hospital. It was a long walk, and left his legs feeling like limp noodles, but it was worth it._

" _Sorry, kid. No, she was a girl who took up with him for awhile. He was a charming bastard, and he treated women right, but sooner or later, they drifted away from him. She was pregnant when she left him, and never told him. Later, she got cancer and died, but before she did, she passed you on to him."_

 _Amy swallowed, apparently from nerves. "Did … did he want me?"_

 _Fred rolled his eyes. "_ _ **Want**_ _you? Kid, he was over the moon when he found out that he had a daughter. You had the best toys, the best of everything. And he made sure to spend as much time as possible with you." A grin creased his lips. "I will never forget walking in that one day and seeing him playing horsey with you. Mind you, you're the first person I've ever admitted seeing that to, either."_

 _A small smile crossed her face. "So he really loved me?"_

" _Kid, you been listening? I'm saying he adored you. He woulda given it all up, just to make sure you had a good life. And he did too, in a way."_

 _A frown. "How do you mean?"_

" _Back in two thousand. The Brockton Bay Brigade – New Wave that was, before they had the moronic fuckin' idea to unmask, excuse my French – found out where he was living, and busted on in. This was kinda before the unwritten rules really had a chance to catch on, you know? Well, they caught him napping. But he woulda beat them – he had them beat for sure – but you were there. And when he tried to steer them away from the closet where he'd shoved you when they busted in, Brandish went to attack it. So he took the hit, to save you."_

 _She was staring at him. "Mom – Carol – tried to_ _ **attack**_ _me?"_

 _He waved a hand impatiently. "She didn't know. Couldn't know. But they still captured him. Handed him over to the PRT. And they figured that with all his enemies, you wouldn't last long in the foster system. So New Wave adopted you." He shrugged. "Me and a few of the guys, we woulda taken you in, but it's not like Child Protection woulda even looked at us."_

 _She took a deep breath, and faced him directly. "So why are you here, now, telling me about this? What do you want from me? What do you want me to do?"_

" _Nothin', kid," he told her honestly. "Doc told me I didn't have long to live. I'm old, and with all the shit that's happened in my life, my organs are pretty well singing the farewell dance. So I called in a few favours, found out where New Wave was living now, and started keeping an eye on you. Only, these old bones aren't as good at sneaking around, so you got the jump on me."_

" _But why?" she asked, her tone puzzled._

 _He shrugged. "I just wanted to see if I could catch up with the boss' kid one last time. Make sure you were all right. I'd thought maybe I could talk to you sometime, tell you about your old man from someone who knew him. Give you the straight dope."_

" _I … see." Her eyes might have been filling with tears, but he couldn't be sure; his vision wasn't what it used to be. "Fred, was it?"_

" _Fred Jones, at your service, Miss Lavere. Minion number twenty-one."_

" _He_ _ **numbered**_ _you?" Her voice was incredulous._

 _He chuckled. It hurt, slightly, but he didn't care. "Nah, that was a bit of a joke. We gave ourselves numbers, and he went along with it. Mostly he called me 'Mr Jones'."_

" _Oh. I see. Uh, is there anything I can do for you? I mean, I -"_

 _Gently, he shook his head. "I know you can make folks younger, but you don't. That's fine, kid. I've really enjoyed catching up with you."_

* * *

I walked in through the front entrance of the PRT building. Not surprisingly, I drew a few stares, as I was currently dressed in my Panacea costume, but that was how they'd requested me. Striding up to the desk, I announced, "Panacea to see Director Piggot."

The girl behind the desk had seen enough capes come through to not be overly surprised; she picked up a phone, pressed a button, and waited. A moment later, she murmured a few words, listened, said something else, then put the phone down. "You can go up now, Panacea," she announced.

As I made for the lift, one of the PRT guards in the lobby followed along. I didn't care.

* * *

 **One Week Previously**

* * *

 _Amy looked around at the roof of the hospital. "Are you sure we're supposed to be up here?"_

 _His chuckle was warm. "Pretty sure we're not. But what are they gonna do? You're Panacea, and I'm so old I have to take a rest break when I get up for a piss."_

 _She eyed him. He looked older than when she had first met him, two weeks previously. Frailer. More decrepit. He was definitely leaning on his cane more than he had been before._

" _Are you all right?" she asked cautiously._

 _He made a vague gesture with his off hand. "I'm sixty-seven. Fifteen years ago I took a shot from Radian that was meant for your dad. Damn near killed me, and I never really came all the way back from it. Figure it's finally caught up with me."_

" _If I can take a look -" She reached for his hand._

 _He pulled it back. "No you don't, missy. What I got is what I got. And what I got to look forward to is a month or so of lying in bed while tubes do my eating and shitting for me, and that's no kind of life. So I'll go out the way I want to go out." He gestured toward the eastern horizon, where light was starting to show. "So, we gonna watch this sunrise, or what?"_

 _There were folding chairs up here already; Amy supposed that the staff had left them up there for the purposes of relaxation. It was the work of a moment to turn them so that they faced to the east; another moment later, she had Fred comfortable in his chair._

 _Settling into the chair beside his, she pushed back her hood, to let the breeze play with her hair. The thin wisps of grey on his scalp also twitched in the same breeze. "I, uh, can fix your eyes, if you want," she ventured. "So you can enjoy it properly."_

 _After a moment, he nodded. "Thanks, kid. Just don't touch nothing else."_

" _I won't, I promise." She laid her hand on his, and only barely managed to suppress her gasp. He hadn't been kidding about the fragile state of his body; it was a wonder that he had survived the climb up the roof stairs. It seemed that he was hanging on by sheer willpower. Carefully, she renewed his eyes, clearing incipient cataracts and strengthening the lenses. "All done."_

" _Thanks, kid." He blinked, looked out at the horizon, where the edge of the ocean was starting to turn red. "Been years since I've seen a proper sunrise."_

" _Thank you for getting me to bring you up here," she replied softly. "I really should take the time to enjoy these more." She paused. "How did you know what happened when Marquis – my father – was captured?"_

 _His chuckle turned into a cough; she waited patiently while he worked through it. "He went to ordinary prison first. They didn't have the Birdcage up and running. I knew some guys who knew some guys, and I had a bit put away. So I dropped a few bribes and got myself a phone call with the boss. We had a good chat, him and me. Told me all about it. Asked me to look you up when I could, an' I said I would." He paused for breath. "They took him away to the 'Cage the next day. I tried to build up some cash again, but it all went wrong. I went down for grand larceny, but with my health problems I got early release. Got out mid February."_

" _And that's when you started keeping an eye on me." Her voice was soft._

" _Well, I made your dad a promise. He woulda done the same for me."_

" _Well … thanks."_

" _Anytime, kid."_

 _They fell silent then, as the brightness increased and the sun slowly climbed into sight, amid red and gold-tinted clouds._

" _God_ _ **damn**_ _, but that's beautiful," he muttered._

" _It is," she agreed. "It really is."_

 _When the sun had cleared the horizon, she felt the breeze pick up, and shivered slightly. "Fred, I think I should be getting you downstairs again."_

 _There was no answer._

" _Fred?"_

 _Still no answer._

 _She looked at him; he was still looking at the sunrise, with tears streaking his lined face. Reaching out, she nudged him; his head lolled to one side. "Fred!" She grabbed for his hand._

 _His skin was cool; there was no heartbeat, no brain activity. He was gone._

 _She took a deep breath. "It's okay, Fred. We'll just sit up here a little longer. No rush."_

 _Still holding his hand, she leaned back and watched the sunrise with him._

* * *

I marched into Director Piggot's office; she looked up with a frown on her face. "I don't recall asking for you to come to my office before visiting the Wards. What's the problem?"

I steeled myself for what was going to come next. In my imagination, Fred had his hand on my shoulder. _Give 'em hell, kid._

"Director Piggot, I've recently learned something rather surprising to me."

"And what's that?" she asked cautiously.

"It turns out that my father is actually the supervillain Marquis. The one who was sent to the Birdcage -"

"I know who Marquis is," she interrupted me. "Get to the point."

I nearly backed down at that moment. Nearly chickened out. But the memory of the aged gangster who had looked out for me, spent his last days with me, bolstered me up. "I want him released."

It took her a moment to process my words. When the meaning did hit her, she came up out of her chair. _**"WHAT?"**_

Behind me, the PRT guard opened the door and peered in; she waved him away. He closed the door again. She eyed me grimly. "This had better be some kind of joke, or -"

I shook my head. "No joke. I want Marquis released into my custody."

"Or what?" Her glare was ferocious. "What will you do?"

"Nothing."

She stared at me. " … what?"

"I said, _nothing._ " I stared back at her. "I won't do _anything._ I won't heal anyone, ever again. I won't fix the Wards' injuries. I won't visit the hospitals. I won't do _anything._ Not until my father gets out of prison."

Putting my hands on her desk, I leaned forward. "Director Piggot … I want my dad back."

* * *

End of Part One


	2. Chapter 2

**Hostage Situation**

* * *

Part Two: Interrogation

* * *

 **Director Piggot**

* * *

She looked at the teenage girl across the desk and slowly lowered herself into her seat. Drawing a deep breath, she counted silently backward from five, to prevent herself from saying something rash. Then she laced her fingers on the desk in front of her.

"You can't be serious about this." This was her talking-to-Wards voice, the one she had perfected over ten years of working in this position. _I am an adult and an authority figure. There is no permutation of this situation that I haven't already worked out ahead of time._

To her credit, the Dallon girl stood her ground, didn't scream, didn't throw a tantrum, didn't become irrational. She had seen all of that in her time in this position. None of it would have helped; it had never helped before.

"I'm absolutely serious about this, Director," Panacea told her, standing up straight again. "I want my father out of the Birdcage." _She didn't use the word 'deadly'. A wise move on her part._

"Or you stop healing people."

"Or I stop healing people, yes."

Piggot waved a hand to indicate the outside world. "Just the general public, or -?" Her tone strongly suggested _it had_ _ **better**_ _be just the general public._ The PRT had other healers they could call upon; rather, other capes whose powers allowed them to heal people with more or less efficiency, but they were scattered fairly thinly over the landscape, and _no-one_ was as capable or as versatile as Panacea.

The girl folded her arms, obviously having caught the tone. "I mean _everyone,_ Director. I stop healing people right now."

"The Wards, downstairs -?"

"None of them is critical, or you would have called me a lot sooner." She shrugged. "Let 'em heal the old-fashioned way."

Piggot pursed her lips. "That is a problem. They need to attend school. Obvious injuries will draw attention. So will staying away from school. Either way, their secret identities are compromised."

"Oh, I can see that it's a problem," Panacea agreed. "It's definitely a problem for them. It might even be a problem for you. But I don't see how it's a problem for _me_."

"They got injured fighting the Undersiders, defending you and the others in the bank!" Emily snapped. "Surely you owe them that!"

"Actually, I owe them nothing that anyone else in the bank doesn't also owe them," Panacea pointed out. "I was the one who got the other hostages upstairs and out of the way of the battle. I engaged two of the villains, and got hurt on my own account. If the Wards had stood back and just let the villains walk out, which they fully intended to do, no-one would have gotten hurt at all. Not me, not Vicky, not anyone."

Given that she had already lambasted the Wards on a very similar vein to this, Piggot decided to not pursue that particular line any further. "Clockblocker is covered in bug bites, and Aegis has a hole in his chest that would kill a normal person," she pointed out. "These injuries will be a huge neon sign to anyone who watches the footage of the fight."

"Again, I'm sorry they got hurt, but I don't see how it's my responsibility," Panacea responded. "They'll survive. And maybe, next time, they might be a little more careful."

Emily decided to leave that one well enough alone, too. "Very well, but you will be covering Endbringer fights, of course."

"No." Panacea's tone was matter-of-fact. "I won't. Not until my father is out of the Birdcage."

Anger was mounting once more in Piggot's chest, and she breathed deeply to try to dissipate it. _This is no time to shout, or try to pull rank; she's not in my chain of command. I literally can not order her to do this. If I push too hard, she walks out. I do not want that._

Once she had her temper under control, she looked warningly at the cowled teen. "Be careful," she growled. "I have a very low tolerance for blackmail and extortion attempts."

"Wrong and wrong." Panacea's voice was flat. "Extortion is demanding money with menaces. You could probably equate my father's freedom with money; it's something I want, after all. But I'm not offering menaces. I'm not threatening to do _anything_. I'm just cutting you off from something that you _were_ getting for free."

Piggot seized on that. "Are you going to be demanding money for healing now? Because -"

"Oh, please." Amy shook her head. "If I charged what it's worth – what it's _really_ worth – you couldn't afford me. I was giving your people the equivalent of several weeks', or even months', worth of care from a top-flight surgeon, plus a whole trauma team, every time I laid hands on a patient. Call it ten thousand dollars a day, minimum. But no, I'm not asking for money. I'm asking for my _dad."_

"Blackmail, then."

Amy rolled her eyes. "You forget, I live with a lawyer. Blackmail is demanding money in return for silence about something. I'm not going to tell anyone about this if you aren't."

Piggot thought about the potential headlines. _Teen hero refuses to heal unless supervillain father is freed._ Even if the PRT managed to spin it to their benefit – and that wasn't necessarily a given, with Panacea's international reputation – it would certainly make capes in general look bad, and would almost certainly poison the well, as regarded the chances of Panacea returning to her regular healing duties. Especially for Endbringer battles.

 _I don't want to be seen as the Director who lost the PRT the services of Panacea because I didn't think things all the way through. There's got to be a way to get around this without caving to her demands._

 _Hm. Maybe there is, after all._

"In any case, the point is moot," she observed, affecting a casualness that she didn't feel. "Marquis is in the _Birdcage._ The world's first, and so far only, truly escape-proof prison. They go in, and they don't come out. There _is_ no provision for release, for any reason whatsoever. You can make all the demands that you want. We simply can't meet them. It's not only legally improbable; it's also physically impossible."

As she continued, she made her tone was as magnanimous as she could manage. "I understand your feelings, I really do. If I had been separated from my father, I would of course want to get back into contact with him. But under the circumstances … " Lowering her voice, she leaned forward across the desk. " … well, I understand that Dragon can pass on messages to those inside, and it may even be possible to get return messages back. This would have to be kept strictly confidential, of course. Just between you and me."

Panacea may have raised an eyebrow; it was hard to tell, under the hood that she was wearing. "I find that hard to believe."

"Passing on messages?" Piggot shrugged. "Well, supplies have to be sent in _somehow._ Messages can go in that way. As for getting messages out -"

"I'm not talking about that," Panacea interrupted. "I'm saying that I find it hard to believe that they would make a prison that it's impossible to pull people out of."

"You do realise," Emily retorted, stung by her tone, " _no-one_ has escaped from the Birdcage in all the years that it's been in operation."

Panacea rolled her eyes again. _"Escape_ , sure. Modern prisons are pretty secure. You can't just tunnel your way out, or pick the lock on your cell door. The only real way out is with outside help, and that generally involves bribing guards. No guards, no bribes, no escape. But _releasing_ someone just involves opening a few doors, and the prisoner can walk right out."

She leaned forward once more. "I'm willing to bet – in fact, I _am_ betting my healing against this – that they left some way to get people out. Just in case, say, some officials got Mastered, and the President's kid got Birdcaged for a crime they weren't guilty of. When daddy finds out, you can _bet_ that he'll move heaven and earth to get junior home again. And if there was no way out, then there'd be a stink like no other. The Birdcage would be dismantled before they would let that stand. So yeah. You say that it's impossible to get out of the Birdcage; I'm betting that you can't _escape,_ but you can be _released."_

Piggot glared at her. "And if you're wrong?"

Panacea shrugged. "I don't think I am. And in fact, the thing is, I won't know the difference between me being wrong and you being stubborn. So I'm just going to assume that you're being stubborn. And just between you and me, I've needed an excuse to take a nice long vacation for some time now. While you look over the fine print for the Birdcage and see if there _isn't_ some way to let Marquis out."

Piggot grimaced; Panacea had called her bluff. "Okay, fine. I didn't want to go to this extent. I think it's time you saw the extent of the crimes that your supervillain father inflicted on Brockton Bay."

"Oh, I think I know of most of it," Panacea told her. "But I'll look at it anyway."

"You asked for it." Piggot accessed the PRT's criminal databases, then told it to call up the laundry list of crimes that they had managed to pin on Marquis before he went away. It made for an impressive display.

"As you can see, he wasn't above extortion, robbery with menaces, and even murder," Piggot pointed out. "He was even implicated in the disappearances of more than one of his own men. This is not a good man, Ms Dallon. He's a vicious criminal."

"Who was captured by the Brockton Bay Brigade when they broke into his house and attacked him in his civilian identity," Amy retorted. "I was there at the time. I came within inches of being killed by Brandish, before my father took the blow instead; the blow that incapacitated him and ended the fight. _They_ broke the unwritten rules and nearly killed an innocent six year old girl."

Piggot blinked; she hadn't known that.

Panacea stabbed her finger at the screen. " _He_ never threatened harm to women or children, ever. He never dealt in drugs or prostitution. He made sure that the families of his men were cared for. The ABB and Merchants both deal in women and drugs, and they don't care much about whether the girls are of legal age. The Empire Eighty-Eight deals drugs, as well as beating up and murdering minorities of all kinds."

She took a deep breath. "Just recently, I had to help the victim of a vicious beating; she was a black college student. Her only crime was to walk down the wrong street at the wrong time of day. The beating could have left her crippled for life, or dead. And yet, Skidmark, Lung and Kaiser all walk free today. Nobody tries to capture _them_ and send them to the Birdcage." Her voice was bitter.

"Marquis was still a criminal and a murderer," Piggot persisted, trying to regain lost ground. " _Is_ still a criminal and a murderer, that is. He's known or suspected to have committed over -"

"Yes, I _know_ he committed assaults and he killed people," Panacea agreed. "You've made that point. He was a supervillain. It's what they _do._ But he stuck to the rules, such as they were, and never killed anyone who didn't deserve it, from his point of view. As for the number of people he hurt, I'll match that with the number of people I've helped, the lives I've saved, in the last year _alone._ Even not counting the three Endbringer attacks that I attended since this time last year. Count _that_ in, and I think you'll find that the death and harm that he caused are just a drop in the bucket. You really want me to call up that list? Because I can and I will." She met Piggot's eyes. "I'll make it really simple. My father has spent ten years in the worst hellhole in the world. I want him out. Leave him there, and I stop healing people. Let him out, and I'll not only start healing again, but I'll also make sure that he doesn't go back to his old ways."

"You can't make a guarantee like that. There's no way you can enforce it."

"Sure I can." Panacea turned on her heel and started toward the door. "I'll just ask him not to."

Piggot blinked. "Wait, where are you going?"

Stopping at the door, Panacea turned. "You're going to want to think about your decision." What might have been a smile crossed her face. "Take your time. I'm in no hurry."

The words she didn't say hung heavy in the air. _But you are._

"Wait – we can talk -"

"No. We can't. We're already starting to go around in circles. You need to understand that I'm actually serious about this. I'm going home now. Later, I might go to the Boardwalk. Or see a movie. I _won't_ be going to the hospital. Or to see the Wards."

"Listen – we can compromise -"

A pause, one hand on the handle. "Explain."

"You go back to healing, while we explore options regarding Marquis. Total transparency. You get to view all our findings -"

"No."

"No?"

"I believe the word is familiar to you. All that'll happen in _that_ case is that I'll see only the findings that you want me to see." Panacea turned the handle. "You know where to find me."

Piggot watched her open the door and walk out; as soon as the door had closed behind the teenager, she pressed a button on her intercom. "Master/Stranger situation, stat! Target is heading for elevators from Director's office. Prepare for detention and isolation of target, tentatively identified as Panacea."

Keying up security cam footage on her computer, she watched the girl head for the lift, then enter it. The doors interleaved shut behind her.

* * *

Reports on Panacea's projected capabilities – never conducive to a good night's sleep – had indicated that she would be effectively immune to any bacterial agent, or even chemical agents with discernible smells; with sufficient warning, she may well be able to generate a bacterium or mite capable of secreting a counter-agent. Even those _without_ smells were not guaranteed to work without fail.

Fortunately, there were other methods available for detaining people whom the PRT wanted to detain without ever coming face to face with them. So it was that, when the elevator was two floors down, discreet nozzles in the ceiling filled the entire car with containment foam.

The elevator went all the way to one of the sub-basement levels, where hazmat-suited techs carved the foam containing Panacea out of the rest of the block; from the movements and muffled sounds, she was alive, conscious, and very unhappy about the situation. This was not their problem; they conveyed the chunk of foam to a sealed cell, where a spray from above dissolved the foam, leaving her sitting up as the spray turned to water and washed the tacky soup down a drain-hole.

* * *

Director Piggot pressed a key on her computer that activated a sound link to the cell, already showing on the screen. "Are you well, Miss Dallon?"

Panacea wiped her mouth, then got up and stared up at where the camera was apparently visible. _"Alive. Well. Not happy. What the hell do you think you're playing at?"_

"I'm sorry, Miss Dallon," Piggot told her with real regret. "I have to ensure that you're not being Mastered, and that you haven't been replaced by a Stranger."

" _Why would – oh."_

Piggot nodded, even though Amy couldn't see her. "Using your story to get Marquis released, yes."

" _So why couldn't you just damn well ask me? Lie detector or whatever?"_

"Most lie detectors can be fooled, especially by someone with a very good knowledge of the human body."

" _So what are you going to do?"_

"Well, I'll be calling your family, as well as bringing certain other talents to bear here -"

" _Oh shit. You realise that Carol has always considered me to be one step away from Marquis, unless I'm kept on the straight and narrow."_

"You might have considered that before you chose this particular course of action."

" _She's one of the reasons I'm_ _ **doing**_ _this."_

"I don't understand."

" _Of course you don't. I bet_ _ **you**_ _had a mother who actually treated you like a daughter, and not like a stranger who happened to be living in the same house."_

"I -"

" _And you probably never had to contend with having a sister who gets all of the attention and the praise, no matter how hard you try to earn even one-tenth of it."_

"So … you're saying you hate your family?"

" _No, no. Mark's okay, but he's just there. Vicky's everything I could want in a sister. But Carol is … that disapproving teacher who never, ever shows any sign of approval, and is ready to bust you for the slightest infraction. That's what I grew up with. That's what I'm tired of living with. That's why I want you to release my father. So I can have my_ _ **real**_ _family back."_

By now, Panacea was sitting with her back up against the wall of the cell, uncaring of the puddles on the floor, arms around her knees.

" _So go ahead, call them. Get your experts in. I'm me, and I'm not under influence. I'm serious about what I want."_

She lowered her head to her knees, and didn't seem inclined to say any more. Piggot keyed off the mic on her end, and made the call.

* * *

 **Armsmaster**

* * *

He was waiting with the Director and Gallant in the area outside the isolation cell when the Dallons arrived. The briefing had been minimal to non-existent; she had told him to wait until everyone was there.

Glory Girl was the first one in. "What's going on here?" she asked. "Why's Amy in an isolation cell? What's going on here?" She moved toward the cell; the two PRT guards reacted slightly, lifting the nozzles of their containment foam dispensers. "Hey, chill, guys. We're on the same side, here."

"Please stay back," one of the guards requested in a voice that made it clear that this was not actually a request.

Glory Girl turned to the others waiting there. "Dean, tell me what's going on here. What are you doing with Ames?"

"It's not me," replied Gallant; his armour was showing signs of the fight in front of the bank, and he was moving carefully. "The Director just told me to attend. I'm still not sure why."

"I'm suspecting a Master/Stranger situation," Armsmaster stated. "But I lack details."

Director Piggot gestured at the girl sitting on the floor within the cell. "I wanted to get you all here together before explaining this, so I didn't have to go over it more than once. I need you to give me your best estimation of the mental state of that person, including whether or not you believe that it is really Panacea, and whether she is in her right mind … or being controlled by someone."

Armsmaster's head came up. "What happened?"

Piggot took a deep breath. "She came to my office and revealed that Marquis is her father."

Armsmaster looked over the assembled group for their reactions. Brandish and Flashbang looked unsurprised, while Glory Girl's eyes widened slightly. _She didn't know._ Gallant let out a small "uh?" of surprise. He controlled his own reaction; he hadn't known either, but it didn't mean that he had to let the world know about it.

"I presume that she said more than that," the Protectorate hero commented.

"She did," agreed Piggot. "She told me that she wanted Marquis released."

At this, Brandish's eyes narrowed; Flashbang still didn't seem to be reacting very much. Glory Girl's eyes widened again.

"Crap, _really?"_ asked Gallant. Again, Armsmaster withheld his reaction.

"Yes, really, Mr Stansfield," Piggot told the Ward acidly. "Now, as Armsmaster has pointed out, this is a Master/Stranger situation. I very much urgently need to find out if she has been Mastered, or has been replaced by a Stranger, for obvious reasons. So, my question to you is, is this Amy Dallon, and is she in command of her own mind?"

"Let me begin," Armsmaster suggested, stepping up to the inch-thick plexiglass of the isolation cell. Within, the girl sitting on the floor did not react. Armsmaster pressed the intercom button. "Panacea."

Her head came up. _"Yes?"_

"Are you the superhero Panacea?"

" _Yes, I am."_

"State your full civilian name."

" _Amelia Claire Lavere."_

There was a distinct pause before he replied. "Isn't your name Amy Dallon?"

" _That's the name they gave me when they adopted me. But my name is really Amelia Claire Lavere."_

All of the readouts on his helmet HUD lie detector were giving a solid green result. He clicked off the intercom and turned toward Piggot. "She's telling the truth." He looked at Flashbang and Brandish. "What's going on?"

Flashbang shrugged. "When we adopted her, we shortened her name to Amy. Gave her our surname. Can't remember her original name, but … "

"That was her name," Brandish snapped. "The name _he_ gave her."

"'He' being Marquis?" asked the Director.

Brandish nodded curtly. "Yes."

"Hm." Armsmaster turned back to the intercom, and pressed the button once more. "Panacea. Have you been using the identity of Amy Dallon since you were adopted into New Wave?"

" _It was the Brockton Bay Brigade back then, but yeah. Amy Dallon's my official name."_

"How did you come to discover your father's real identity?"

" _From an old minion of his. I encountered him a few weeks ago, while I was walking to the hospital. We talked, a lot. He told me about my father. My real father. What he was like. How he was captured."_ The look she sent toward Brandish at that moment should have cracked the plexiglass.

"I understand that he was attacked in his own home, while you were present," Armsmaster noted. "Is this true?"

" _Yes, and the woman who's been pretending to be my mom for the last ten years nearly killed me."_ Her voice was bitter. _"My father saved my_ _ **life**_ _, and for that he got to go to the Birdcage."_

Gallant and Glory Girl were both staring at Brandish now; she compressed her lips and ignored them.

"If you're referring to the unwritten rules, they weren't really around back then," he told Panacea.

" _No, not until that guy killed Fleur. Then people really started paying attention to them."_ The bitterness in her voice had not decreased. _"Funny how that happens."_

Armsmaster drew a breath. "Tell me about why you want Marquis released."

" _He's my dad. He was a supervillain and a murderer, and he was_ _ **still**_ _a better parent than I've ever had since."_ The matter-of-fact tone in the teenage girl's voice came through strongly.

"You have to understand; what you are demanding isn't possible."

" _Sure. Just so long as_ _ **you**_ _understand that if I don't get what I want, you don't get what you want."_

Emotional markers were high, but aside from that, she was batting a solid thousand. Either Panacea believed implicitly in an elaborate series of lies, or everything she was saying was the honest truth. Which begged the question. He spoke carefully into the intercom.

"What, exactly, do we not get?"

" _Any more healing, ever."_

* * *

There was a babble of voices from behind him. Armsmaster waited them out. He pressed the button again. "Am I to understand that you intend to withhold healing from everyone who needs it unless your father – Marquis, the supervillain – is released from the Birdcage?"

" _Yes."_ She nodded once, sharply.

"You do realise, that's a very selfish act."

" _And I'm not_ _ **allowed**_ _to be selfish? Everyone_ _ **else**_ _is selfish! Demanding that I heal you all, any hour of the day –_ _ **that's**_ _selfish! I just want something back of my own. I want my father."_

"Miss Dallon -"

" _Lavere."_

"Miss Lavere, then. Are you aware of the amount of suffering that will ensue from you doing this?"

" _It won't be me doing it. You know what I want. If I get my father back, you get back Panacea. If I don't … you don't."_ She sat up. _"And by the way. Now that my foster mother the lawyer is here, I'd like to enter a complaint about being kept in unlawful detention, in inhumane conditions, as a minor."_ She gestured at the cell, the water still lying in puddles, at her bedraggled costume.

"You're still under Master/Stranger protocols here," Armsmaster told her. "Until we can determine your identity and state of mind either way, we can't risk letting you out."

But Glory Girl had turned to her mother, and was talking urgently to her. Flashbang was looking unhappy as well. Brandish's expression was more and more sour by the moment.

"One more question." Armsmaster's voice was sharp. "Did anyone else put you up to this? This minion you spoke of?"

" _Not in the slightest."_ In the cell, Panacea shook her head. _"He just filled me in on what I didn't know before. This is all my idea. And in case you're wondering, he died last week, on the roof of the hospital. We were watching the sunrise together."_

* * *

Armsmaster keyed the intercom off and stepped away from the cell. Piggot came to meet him, gesturing Gallant to accompany her. Together, they moved away from the Dallons, who were talking among themselves.

"Armsmaster, your analysis?" Piggot's voice was sharp.

"She's telling the truth, as she knows it. Not even attempting to hide anything. She believes implicitly in what she's saying."

"Gallant?" The Director turned to the Ward.

The teenager took a deep breath. "She's angry, upset, determined, and there's a longing there. Also, a little bit embarrassed, but that's probably to do with being in a cell like this."

"Any sense of duplicity?"

"No." Gallant looked the Director in the eye. "As Armsmaster stated, she believes implicitly in what she says. And she has mixed feelings about seeing her family."

"Unsurprising," the Director murmured. "With what she's revealed about Brandish … "

" _I'm_ surprised that she's been walking to the hospital, in the middle of the night it seems, to heal people, and no-one else knew about it," Gallant put in. "Not her parents, not her sister."

"They didn't?" Piggot raised an eyebrow. "Wait, how do you know she was going there in the middle of the night?"

"She met him while she was walking there," Gallant explained. "And they watched the sunrise from the hospital roof. Which suggests to me that she walked there in the middle of the night. Or she went there in the evening, and spent all night there. No-one else came with her, because no-one in her family knew about it."

"Something to be investigated," Piggot noted briskly. "Okay, analysis."

"So far, I cannot state that she's anyone but who she says she is," Armsmaster told her carefully.

"And she's not throwing off any weird or out of place emotions," Gallant added.

Piggot nodded. "Very well. So she's not lying or insane."

"I've met insane people." Gallant shuddered. "She's not insane."

"Now what?" asked Armsmaster.

"Now the family speaks to her."

* * *

 **Glory Girl**

* * *

When Piggot gave them the nod, Vicky and her parents moved up to the cell. Dad reached out and pressed the intercom. "Amy girl," he began. "What's going on? Why are you doing this?"

" _It's not you, Mark, it's me."_ Amy moved up to the plexiglass. _"I can't take this any more. The pressure. I need someone who's in my corner. Who understands."_

Vicky leaned across to the speaker. _"I'm_ in your corner, Ames. _I_ understand."

Amy's eyes were sad. _"Sorry, Vicky. It's not enough."_

"What do you mean, not enough? You're my _sister._ We've known each other _forever."_

" _Ten years, more or less, Vicky. And you're right. I could never have had a better sister."_

"Enough." Mom's voice was sharp; her courtroom voice, the voice that stated that the bullshit had better stop, because Carol Dallon was going to kick ass and take names until it did. "Amy Dallon, why are you doing this?"

" _You know why, Carol. You've been scared this day would happen since you adopted me."_

Vicky frowned. "What do you mean?" She turned to her mother. "What does she mean?"

"Nothing." Mom stared through the plexiglass. "It was a mistake to take you in. I knew that then, and I know it now."

" _Mom!"_ Vicky's protest was a wail. "You can't _mean_ that! Amy's your daughter, just like me!"

"Hardly. You heard her. She's the daughter of _Marquis._ Every day I looked at her, I saw _him._ And now he's coming out in her."

Vicky shook her head. "Mom, you can't think -"

"I don't think. I _know."_ She gestured at the girl in the cell. "Who but the daughter of a supervillain would demand to have him released? Who but a villain in the making herself would hold the whole world hostage to her demands like this?"

"I hardly think she's holding anyone _hostage,_ dear," protested Dad. "She's just saying that she's not going to be using her powers any more."

" _After_ she spent years making sure that everyone knows that Panacea can cure _anyone_ of _anything."_ Mom's tone was cutting. "Giving out healing for free. Healing the members of the Protectorate and the Wards. Attending Endbringer battles. Making herself _indispensable."_

Vicky shook her head. "That's not being _evil,_ Mom! That's being a _hero!"_ She turned to the intercom. "Ames. Was this all a big plot of yours?"

An electronic chuckle. _"No, Vicky. It was just me, healing people because I couldn't see any other way to go. I couldn't_ _ **not**_ _do it. I didn't see another option, even as I got closer and closer to burning out. Well, now I have another option. And I'm taking it."_

Piggot stepped forward. "If you could ask her questions, so that we could see if she knows the answers?"

"Oh. Ah. Right." Dad leaned in to the intercom. "Amy girl. Birthday before last. What did I get you?"

Her tone was dry. _"Nothing, Mark. You forgot."_

"What?" He frowned. "I'm sure I remembered … "

Vicky shook her head. "No, Dad. She's right. You forgot her birthday that year. You got her a gift certificate two weeks late."

"Oh." He shrugged, gestured to Mom. "Carol, your turn."

Mom took a deep breath. "Amy, what are you intentions in the unlikely event that your father is released?"

" _Get a place. Move in with him."_

"And when he recommences his criminal career?" Her voice was sharp.

" _I'll make sure he doesn't."_

"And how will you do that?" Her tone was derisory now.

" _I'll ask him not to. For my sake."_

"So what do you think he'll do instead of criminal activity? It _is_ all he knows, you realise."

" _Well,_ _ **actually,**_ _Carol, all he knows right now is the Birdcage."_ Amy's voice was very dry. _"Only the worst hellhole in the civilised world. And he's been there for ten years. Somehow I don't think he'll want to go back. So maybe he'll be happy to take a rest. Smell the flowers. Maybe even come to the hospital with me and assist with bone reconstruction."_

"I find that very hard to believe."

" _Well, gee, until we_ _ **ask**_ _him, we'll never_ _ **know**_ _, will we?"_

"I don't much like the tone of your voice, young lady."

" _And I don't much like being locked in a cell like this, but we can't all have what we want, can we?"_

Vicky cleared her throat. "Uh, Mom? Can I talk to her?"

"Very well," huffed Mom. "But remember. She's not your sister, not really. She never has been."

"As far as I'm concerned, she is, and she always will be." Vicky leaned in to the intercom. "Ames, can you hear me?"

" _Sure thing, Vicky. What do you want to know?"_

She bit her lip. "When was the first time I kissed Dean?"

" _About two days after you started going out with him."_ Amy grinned. _"You couldn't stop talking about it. By the time we went to sleep, you'd planned out your married life together, and named all six of your kids."_ She paused. _"Of course, a week later, you had your first fight with him and dumped him, but that was kind of par for the course."_

From behind her, Vicky heard Gallant – Dean – mutter to himself, " _Six_ kids?" She ignored him, and fought down her blush.

"Uh, okay. What did I say to you after we fought Skidmark for the first time?"

Amy looked up and assumed an expression of concentration. _"As I recall, it was 'Ew, ew ew. Ew ew ew. Ewwwwww.' And then you went and had about three showers."_

"Oh god, yes. I remember." Vicky turned to the others. "That was the most swearing that I'd ever heard in my life. I felt icky for _days."_ She turned back to the intercom. "Last question. What did I do when I first got my costume?"

Amy snorted, the sound carrying through clearly. _"You refused to take it off for about three days. Mom had to threaten you with grounding just to make you take it off to have a shower. You even_ _ **slept**_ _in it."_

"Haha, yeah." Vicky turned from the intercom. "Okay, I'm satisfied. She's Amy. Dad? Mom?"

Dad nodded. "I agree with Vicky. Carol?"

Mom frowned, didn't answer. Vicky reached out, put her hand on her mother's arm. "Mom?"

"I'm thinking."

"What's to think about, Mom? It's _Amy_ in there. You know it. I know it. Come on, _tell_ them."

Carol Dallon drew a deep breath and turned to the PRT Director. "I believe that that's Amy in there. If you say she's not under outside influence, then I believe you." She paused for a long beat. "But I'm not so sure that she's in her right mind."

" _What?"_ Vicky grabbed her arm again. _"Mom!"_

Her mother shook her hand off. _"Think,_ Victoria. She wants to have Marquis _released._ She's willing to have a supervillain, one who was sent to the _Birdcage_ , let back into the world."

Dad grimaced. "Dear, he _is_ her real father."

"And that's my point. She's not rational as far as he's concerned."

"Well _maybe_ if you'd told her about this years ago, so it didn't come as a big surprise _now,_ we wouldn't _be_ in this position," Vicky snapped.

Director Piggot cleared her throat loudly. Everyone looked at her.

"I would much rather you not have a family argument right here and right now," Piggot told them sternly. "You agree that it is your daughter in there?"

"Well, it's Amy, yeah," Vicky supplied. "No doubt about it."

"Unfortunately," Mom put in, "it's also an Amy who intends to withhold healing from those who need it until her demands are met."

"Which leads me to my next question," the Director noted. "Where do we go from here?"

* * *

End of Part Two


	3. Chapter 3

**Hostage Situation**

* * *

Part Three: Negotiations

* * *

" _Well, I'll tell you what you're gonna do_ _ **first**_ _!" snapped Glory Girl. "You're gonna let my sister out of that box, or I'm gonna let her out myself." She eyed the guards. "You've got the choice of getting out of my way, or not getting out of my way. One of those doesn't end well."_

 _The guards stepped back, raising the containment foam sprayers. Piggot frowned. "Threats are not appropriate here, Glory Girl."_

 _The teen hero rolled her eyes. "Then_ _ **open**_ _the damn cell already. You've proven that she's who she says she is!"_

" _I don't -" began Brandish._

 _Glory Girl whirled on her. "Mom, seriously? Do you even_ _ **hear**_ _yourself? You sound paranoid! Are you honestly saying that she's been planning this for the last ten years? She didn't_ _ **have**_ _powers till only a couple of years ago!"_

" _No, but -"_

" _And she didn't know about Marquis until just a little while ago._ _ **After**_ _she's done all the healing that she's already done! Seriously,_ _ **look**_ _at the facts!"_

" _So_ _ **she**_ _says," Brandish returned stubbornly._

 _Glory Girl marched over to the intercom; the guards stepped out of the way, tracking her with the containment foam sprayers. She ignored them and pressed the button. "Ames. When did you learn about Marquis being your father?"_

" _ **Three weeks ago,"**_ _Panacea replied._

 _Everyone turned to look at Armsmaster. He nodded. "It's the truth."_

" _See?" exclaimed Glory Girl. "No big Machiavellian plot! So let her out already!"_

" _I have to agree," Flashbang stated. "Please let Amy out of there."_

 _Piggot nodded to one of the guards; whatever he did was not visible, but the plexiglass sheet split down the middle, along an almost invisible seam, and slid apart._

* * *

The tiny, irritating sound of air hissing through the crack between the two sheets – they had been keeping my cell at a pound or two below standard air pressure to keep any pathogens I released _in_ the cell with me, a standard bio-lab precaution – ceased, as the sheets slid apart. I was almost immediately assaulted by my sister; her hug sent me back several paces.

"Are you okay?" she demanded. "They didn't do anything to you?"

"No, just foamed me in the elevator," I told her. "But I need a shower. Even with the dissolving agent, that stuff gets _everywhere."_

Director Piggot cleared her throat. "Panacea."

Vicky and I looked at her. "Yes?" I enquired.

"I will make facilities available so you can shower. We can provide clothing to replace your costume -"

"Nah, screw that," Vicky broke in. "I can race home and get more clothes while Amy's showering."

The Director paused, and waited until it was clear that Vicky wasn't going to keep going. "Whichever suits you. _In the meantime,_ I will be establishing secure communications with the Chief Director, so that we can talk this out at a level where talking it out actually means something."

Mark cleared his throat. "Perhaps we should get Sarah in on this."

Carol turned to look at him, and he shrugged apologetically. "She _is_ team leader, after all. And Amy's a member of New Wave."

"Acceptable," the Director noted. "You can bring Lady Photon in on this. But nobody else." She then looked at me. "Is that satisfactory to you? To speak to the Chief Director?"

At that moment, I had a massive flash of insight. From the moment I had walked into the Director's office, I had been subconsciously been expecting her to shut me down hard, to bring up some legalistic argument that I couldn't counter. But she _hadn't._ Each time she had brought up an argument that I had countered, she had changed tack, not pressing on any direction.

It wasn't because I was a great negotiator. It was because she was soft-pedalling. She _didn't want_ to lose me as a resource. She didn't want to refuse so hard that I walked out – as I actually had. As it was, even soft-pedalling, she had pushed me so hard a couple of times that I had almost stumbled; only the words of Dad's last minion had kept me going. _Don't let the bastards wear you down, kid. So long as you're in there fighting, you've got a chance._

I did my best to contain the heady feeling that this gave me. I had _thought_ I had the leverage here, and this reaction finally seemed to confirm it. But would the Chief Director acknowledge it? I had spoken to her a few times, but never at length. She was widely acknowledged to be an extremely sharp political mover and shaker, and I was just the adopted daughter of a lawyer. If it came down to a straight battle of wits, I knew who would win. And it wasn't going to be me.

On the other hand, if this didn't get kicked upstairs, it would never go anywhere. Approaching Director Piggot had been my first move. I just had to hope that I'd be able to figure out my next one before I was checkmated. Or something. I was never any good at chess.

With the feeling of stepping off of a cliff, I nodded. "Yes, please."

"If you will excuse me, then." Her expression didn't change; she still looked unhappy as she left the room.

* * *

I didn't know where the bathrobe had come from, but I found it hanging in the shower enclosure after I finished scrubbing the gunk off my skin, and washing it from my hair. They had supplied me with a bottle of some sort of formulation that completed the cleaning process, but it left my hair feeling like barbed wire. _Oh well, can't have everything._

The tap on the door came when I was towelling my barbed-wire hair free of water in front of the mirror, checking for any remaining bits of containment gunge. There were none; I raised my voice. "Who is it?"

"Your sister, dummy. I come bearing clothes."

"Come on in," I invited her, after re-checking that the robe was fastened. The door opened, and she entered.

"Well, you're looking a bit cleaner," she observed. "That stuff's a pain to get off, isn't it?"

"It is," I agreed. "Thanks for the clothes."

"Not a problem, sis." She put them on the bench. "Uh … "

I paused in my towelling. "What?"

"You _are_ still my sister, right? I mean, even okay, I get it that your dad's a big-name supervillain. That shouldn't change anything between us, right? So we're still sisters?"

I sighed, and let the towel fall to drape around my neck. Holding up my right hand, I stuck my little finger out. "Still sisters."

Beaming, Vicky hooked her finger around mine. "Sister pinky hug!"

"Sister pinky hug." I didn't feel the same pleasure she did at the simple act, but then, I felt somewhat differently about her than she did about me. Still, I was profoundly grateful that she was sticking by me in this matter.

"So yeah, Aunt Sarah's here, and they're waiting in the conference room, and Dean wants to talk to you when you're all dressed and modest," she told me in a rush.

"How does Aunt Sarah look?" My aunt had always been nicer to me than Carol. According to Fred, Marquis had stated that if she had been able, she and Uncle Neil would have taken me in instead of Mark and Carol. But I couldn't rely on her being on my side in this matter.

"Oh, like Aunt Sarah." Vicky shrugged. "Doing what she always does. Calming Mom down and waiting till she gets the facts before acting."

"That's good, I guess." Aunt Sarah was kind, and level-headed, and sweet – the Photon Mom nickname was not by accident – but she was anything but a pushover in battle. And I did not want her up against me in the upcoming negotiation. Because a negotiation it would be.

"I'll just let you get dressed now. Don't forget, Dean wants to chat."

"What about?"

"How do I know?" She shrugged. "For a boy, he's really good at holding out on me."

"That's why you keep going back to him," I suggested. "Because you can't just pigeonhole him and forget him."

"Maybe." She wrinkled her nose at me. "I can't wait till we get you a steady boyfriend. I will _so_ tease you about him."

"Get out of here," I told her firmly, snapping the towel in her direction. "Shoo. I want to get dressed."

Laughing, she went.

* * *

Dressed once more, I emerged from the bathroom to find Dean waiting for me, still in his armour, but with his helmet under his arm. His blond hair was mussed, and sticking out at all directions. I could see why Vicky was attracted to him; his features were strong and regular, and passably handsome. I could recognise the attraction for others, but it didn't really work for me. Especially given how I felt about him.

"You wanted to talk?" I asked.

He nodded, then turned to Vicky, who was loitering a short distance away. "Uh, can we have some privacy for this?"

She turned puppy-dog eyes on me. "Ames, you mind if I hear this?"

I pretended to consider it. "Vicky, I don't know what he wants to say -" That was a lie. I actually had quite a good idea. " - but if Dean wants you to know, he'll let you know. Otherwise … sorry."

"Meanie." She pouted and moved away, out of earshot.

"Dean? You figured it out?" My voice was low. I was pretty sure what he was going to talk about. Through his power, he knew what I was feeling, and he must have made a guess at my thoughts, because he nodded.

"Yeah," he agreed, keeping his voice just as low. "I've kind of known for a while. And I know how you feel about me, too."

I shied away from him. "God, I -"

"It's all right," he assured me. "It's _all right."_

I bit my lip. "No. No, it's not. I shouldn't _hate_ my sister's boyfriend."

"You'd be surprised how many do." His tone was light.

"But not for the reason that I do." Mine was bitter.

He nodded. "I guess."

"I didn't _ask_ for this," I protested. "It just … happened."

"She doesn't feel the same way." It was a statement of fact.

"I'd already gathered as much. I'm her sister." _Nothing more._ I couldn't quite keep that trace of bitterness out of my voice.

A slight frown creased his brow. "What you said earlier about you having a right to be selfish -"

My eyes opened wide as I divined his meaning. "No. Oh god no. I'd never try to take Vicky off of you. I mean, _I_ love _her,_ but … "

" … but she's not interested in you that way," he finished. "So you're just going to what, suffer in silence?"

"It's not like I haven't had plenty of practice," I replied bitterly. "Dean. Please do not tell her."

He tilted his head. "I don't like keeping her in the dark like this."

"I don't have a choice." My voice was low. "Right now, she's supporting me because sisters. If I let her know that I've actually got feelings for her, then that opens a whole other can of worms. Worst case, she stops supporting me, starts worrying about my motivations, right alongside Carol." I began kneading my forehead with forefinger and thumb. "I can't afford for that to happen."

"Yeah, got it." Slowly, he nodded. "Okay, I'll keep your secret for the moment. But just so you know, this sort of thing isn't healthy to keep bottled up."

"You _think?"_ I snorted a laugh.

"I'm serious," he told me earnestly. "Listen, there are therapists who come around regularly, check on us, make sure we're all sane and competent to do our jobs. Maybe we could talk Piggot into getting you into a session with one of them."

"One thing at a time," I told him. "Right now, this is between you and me." I met his eyes. "Please don't tell Vicky. Or anyone else."

"I won't," he assured me. "But if you ever want to talk ..."

"Thanks." I patted him on the armoured shoulder. "And sorry about the no-healing thing. But he's my _dad,_ you know?"

"Well, speaking as someone who's got a little bit of a pain in the ribs, I'm not so hot on the no healing," he replied dryly. "But speaking as someone who would go bat-shit insane on anyone trying to take my dad away from me and mom, I can kind of accept your position. Intellectually, of course."

"Thanks." I smiled at him. "That means a lot." Glancing around to make sure no-one was looking, I put my hand on his cheek and exerted my power. "Fractured rib, got it."

He blinked as I pulled my hand away. "You healed me?"

"No, I didn't."

"But I -"

"Dean. _I didn't heal you._ You just weren't hurt as bad as you thought. Got it?"

He looked at me for a long moment. "Uh, yeah. Got it. Thanks."

"So long as we understand each other." I really hoped that he wouldn't tell anyone else; it would weaken my position massively if he did. But he _had_ shown sympathy to my cause. _A moment of weakness. Don't do it again._

"So what's your position on my dad being a notorious supervillain?" I asked as we moved off to catch up with Vicky.

"Still working on that one," he admitted. "He did a lot of bad stuff."

"A lot of supervillains do a lot of bad stuff," I countered.

" _His_ bad stuff got him Birdcaged," he retorted.

"And what if I could guarantee he wouldn't just go back to his life of crime once he got out?"

"How would you do that?"

I shrugged. "He took an attack that would have killed me. I think he'd at least listen if I asked him not to."

"Hm." He fitted his helmet back on. "I think I'd have to meet the guy to know for sure."

He had a point. "Me too, I guess. But I still think I could make it work."

"That's if you get that far."

"There is that."

* * *

Director Piggot sat up at the end of the table, very much in charge. At the far end of the table, a massive flatscreen monitor covered most of the wall. If you watched the Superbowl on this, you'd be able to count the individual streamers on the cheerleaders' pompoms. Carol and Mark and Aunt Sarah sat down along one side of the table; Armsmaster sat on the other side.

I could see chairs waiting for me and Vicky alongside Aunt Sarah, but I went to the other side, where Dean was sitting down next to Armsmaster. Grabbing a chair from the wall, I sat next to Dean with a bit of spacing between. Vicky blinked, but after a moment's hesitation, she got her own chair and sat between me and Dean.

Dean could probably read, much better than I could, the flickers of surprise around the room as I upset the perceived status quo; however, I didn't miss the changes of expression on the faces of the Director, Carol and Aunt Sarah.

 _Your dad always said, if you want someone to listen closely, first you gotta get their attention,_ Fred had told me in one of our conversations. He had chuckled dryly. _He was real good at that._

Well, I certainly had their attention. All I had to do now was make it work.

Aunt Sarah leaned across the table toward me. "Amy," she began. "What's going on?"

I raised my chin slightly. "What have you been told?"

"That you know who your father is, and that you're petitioning to get him released, by withholding your healing."

 _I bet it was put to you a lot more strongly than that._ "That's it in a nutshell, yeah."

She frowned. "Have you thought through all of the consequences here, Amy? Marquis is a _supervillain_. He went to the Birdcage for a _reason_."

"He went to the Birdcage because you broke the unwritten rules _twice,_ Aunt Sarah," I told her flatly.

"Twice?" she asked. "We attacked him in his home -"

" - and Carol nearly killed me before he got in the way. _Attacking family members._ Remember that part of it?"

"She didn't know, couldn't know, that you were there."

"Would that matter if he'd been a second too slow, and she'd skewered me?" I raised an eyebrow. "How _bad_ would the Brockton Bay Brigade have looked with the murder of a six year old on their record?" I leaned forward, looking at Carol. "How would you have felt – _Mom_ – if you had to go home and look Vicky in the eyes with the knowledge that you had killed a girl _just her age_ by accident?"

Mark grimaced; Aunt Sarah looked taken aback. Carol looked furious. "He was a dangerous man!" she snapped.

"I'm really, really, not going to accept that it's okay to kill innocents, even by accident, just so that one 'dangerous man' can go to prison," I told her softly. "But then, I guess that's the difference between you and me."

Carol's chair fell over backward as she jumped to her feet. I could see the energy gathering around her hands.

"Mom!" shouted Vicky.

"Carol!" shouted Mark and Sarah, both at once.

" _Enough!"_ bellowed Director Piggot in a voice that shook the table. "Brandish, _stand down immediately!"_

Carol paused, the energy blade half-formed. "Did you _hear_ what she said?" she demanded.

"Yes, and I can see what you're doing," Piggot informed her tartly. "Are you truly proposing to attack your foster daughter for making a _comment?"_

"Mark, take Carol out of here," Sarah ordered. "Now."

Without demur, Mark rose and took Carol by the elbow. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's go get a cup of coffee or something. Take a breath, get our heads on straight."

"But -" protested Carol. "She – it's _her -"_

"Carol," ordered Aunt Sarah, in a voice that no-one would ever associate with 'Photon Mom'. "Go. Now."

Slowly, Carol let the energy dissipate; Mark steered her along the table and out through the door. It shut behind them. Piggot turned an unfavourable eye upon me. With Aunt Sarah already looking steadily in my direction, I felt like a bug pinned to a board. With two large pins.

"I _trust_ that there will be no further outbursts of that nature," Piggot growled.

"I'm good," I assured her.

"That has yet to be determined," she murmured, then raised her voice. "Chief Director Costa-Brown. You've been listening?"

* * *

We turned our heads as the screen lit up; on it, facing us, was Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, head of the Parahuman Response Teams. Possibly _the_ most adept political infighter in the world, given that she'd steered the PRT through countless crises since its inception nearly twenty years ago. It was through her that I would have to go in order to get my father out of the Birdcage. I wasn't looking forward to trying.

" _Yes, I have,"_ the Chief Director replied. Her voice was strong, commanding, confident. She had to be at least forty by now, but even looking closely, I could barely see the signs of ageing. Either her makeup artist was a miracle worker, or she was one of those lucky people who looked the same at forty as at twenty. _"I've also gone over the recording of what transpired in your office. It made for interesting listening."_

The words conveyed her meaning well enough; the pitch and of them carried another meaning altogether; I caught the Director's wince from the corner of my eye. Not that I could really tell what it was; I wasn't good at reading deep meanings. It hadn't surprised me that she had been recording; in a position such as hers, conversations like that would be recorded as a matter of course.

"As you know, once she left my office, I instituted Master/Stranger protocols," Piggot stated. "I brought in her family, as well as Armsmaster and Gallant. All of them concurred that she is who she says she is, that she's not Mastered, and that she seems to be in her right mind."

" _That's good to hear,"_ Costa-Brown replied. _"It means we can get right down to brass tacks. Panacea."_

I jumped slightly at being addressed. "Ma'am?"

" _I understand that you want your father, Marquis, released from the Birdcage. As incentive to do so, you are withholding all use of your healing abilities until this is done. Am I correct?"_

"I … yes," I agreed. "I mean, I know he's a powerful supervillain, but I think I can ask him to not be, you know, a criminal any more."

" _And what makes you think that he would listen to you?"_ Her expression had not changed; she was as attentive as before.

"I … he saved my life. Took a hit that would have killed me, could have killed him. This lost him the fight. If he's willing to do that for me … "

" _I see."_ She pursed her lips. _"You do realise that years have passed. He may not be the same man as he was."_

"He's still my dad." I spread my hands out before me.

" _Hm. Well. Supposing, hypothetically, we release him. You ask him to stop being a criminal. He agrees, but in time, you find that he has not, in fact, done so. We arrest him again. Do you go on another strike to make us release him once more?"_

"It would really depend," I confessed.

" _In what way? A criminal act is a criminal act."_

"Well, suppose he's walking down the street and he gets attacked by a mugger with a knife," I posited. "He defends himself by using his powers. Is that seen as a criminal act? Is he going to get arrested and Birdcaged again just for that?"

" _It would probably need to be a more blatant act than that,"_ agreed the Chief Director.

"What I'm worried about," I told her, "is if I agree to some vague term, then someone pushes the definition on that term to its very limit just so they have an excuse to arrest him again. So no, I wouldn't go on strike again if he was arrested for doing what I saw as a blatant criminal act … but if I thought he was being railroaded, hell yes I would."

" _That could be … problematic,"_ the Chief Director admitted. _"Ask any career criminal in jail, he'll tell you that he was railroaded, that his trial was a sham."_

"Perhaps not," Aunt Sarah spoke up, surprising me. "With all due respect, ma'am, you never met him. I did. The Brigade engaged him several times."

"I fought him once," Armsmaster volunteered. "While I was in the Wards."

I hadn't known that; I turned my head to look at the armoured hero. "How did it go?"

"He took me down so fast it was almost insulting. Then he told me to come back once I was out of short pants." Armsmaster's voice was almost, but not quite, emotionless; I could see the tic in his jaw.

"He could have killed you?" I asked.

"Easily," he replied flatly. "And he _did_ kill other heroes."

A silence fell over the table. Sarah looked at me as though to say, _Are you_ _ **sure**_ _you want to let this man out of the Birdcage?_

"So who were the other major villains in the city at the time?" I knew the answer; I wanted to hear it from him.

"That isn't relevant -" began Director Piggot.

" _No, I want to hear this,"_ the Chief Director interceded. _"Armsmaster, please answer the question."_

Armsmaster nodded. "The Empire Eighty-Eight, under Allfather," he reported. "Galvanate. Butcher and the Teeth."

 _"This was, of course, a different Butcher, different Teeth, than the ones that are out there today."_ It wasn't a question.

"All different, yes," Aunt Sarah confirmed. "But just as bad as they are today."

"Okay," I noted. "And if you'd encountered any of the other ones instead of Marquis? How would you have rated your survival chances, if they'd gotten the better of you?"

Armsmaster glanced down the table; I turned my head back just in time to see the Chief Director's nod.

"Minimal," he gritted, his jaw tight.

" _So we've established that while Marquis murdered people – including heroes – he was by no means alone in that, at the time,"_ the Chief Director noted. _"And there were times and places where he_ _ **could**_ _have killed people, but didn't. Is that about right?"_

Aunt Sarah nodded. "He was a vicious criminal, and merciless to his enemies, but he set his rules, he played by them, and he never, ever broke them. And when he gave his word, he kept it."

" _So you're saying that Marquis would not lie to his daughter, or break his word to her?"_

"I believe so, yes."

" _And of the ten years that have passed since his arrest?"_

"I don't know," Sarah admitted. "He might have become more vicious. He may have discarded his rules. He may be dead."

" _So, if he was hypothetically released, what do you think the chances are that he would reoffend, given the chance?"_

"I can't make a call on that," Aunt Sarah told her at once. "As you said, he's been in there for ten years."

" _Hazard a guess for me."_

She bit her lip. "If he's still the same man as he was … if he gave Amy his solemn word that he would not take up criminal activity … well, given that the PRT now know his face and name, and that they _and_ Amy would be watching him like hawks, _and_ that his old organisation would be well and truly scattered to the winds … "

 _Or dead,_ I supplied silently.

" … I actually think there's a good chance that he'd stay on the straight and narrow. Barring unforseen circumstances, of course."

The Chief Director's mouth moved in what might have even been a smile. _"Barring those, yes."_

"Chief Director," Piggot objected. "Please tell me that you're not seriously _considering_ this!"

" _Emily, my job requires that I consider_ _ **everything**_ _. That I give thought to everything. Even the unthinkable."_ She turned her face, and I had the eerie impression that she was looking back at me. _"Panacea, do you believe that I have given this matter a fair hearing?"_

"I -" I was tongue-tied for a moment. This woman had _presence._ If she had said, "Follow me," I would have followed her. To the ends of the earth, if necessary. "I, yes, you have." I paused. "What, uh, what -"

" _\- have I decided? Nothing, yet. This is far too important a matter to decide all at once."_

That gave me hope – and a hint. "So you _can -"_

" _Get people out of the Birdcage? Yes, we can. This is a closely guarded secret, and you are all sworn to silence on the matter."_ Her expression turned stern, and she looked at each of us in turn. _"Do you agree to keep this secret?"_

"Uh, yes." About two seconds after the words had left my mouth, I realised that I'd just been outmanoeuvred. _Ah crap. Now I'm legally bound to never mention the possibility._

Even as I realised this, each of the others around the table offered their agreement to keeping the secret. Director Piggot, I noted, didn't bother; she obviously knew already.

" _Good. Now that's out of the way. Ms Lavere, one of the reasons we can't just pull him out is that there are several inmates – Strangers and the like – who would be able to hitch a ride, and we don't want them loose in the world again. Another is that we need to have his mental state thoroughly assessed. A third reason is that the Birdcage is a deterrent wholly and solely_ _ **because**_ _people think that not only is it escape-proof, but it's also impossible to get people out again. Your example of the President's child is well made; it_ _ **is**_ _possible to get people out, but there are only two ways to do it. One is for the appropriate authority to order Dragon to open it up and let the person out."_

I felt stunned, overwhelmed. She was telling me things that I'd had no idea of. "Uh, what's the other way?"

Her mouth creased in a brief smile. _"Classified."_

"Oh. Well. Uh. What happens now?"

" _What happens now is that I go into high-level talks with people to determine whether or not it is in our best interests to have Marquis on the outside again, and what the consequences – and our responses to said consequences – would be, either way."_

"Oh," I repeated. I thought of saying, _well, don't take too long, because there's going to be no healing going on while you're in your 'high level talks',_ but I was pretty sure she knew exactly what was on my mind. Plus, it would have felt more than a little rude to throw that in her face, after the courteous – more than courteous – hearing that she had granted me.

" _In the meantime,"_ she went on, _"I would like to make you an offer. Purchase a week of your healing time, so to speak."_

"Oh, uh, I said I didn't want money," I protested, then stopped myself. _She knows this. Idiot._

" _You did,"_ she agreed. _"What would you say to a conversation with Marquis?"_

* * *

I stopped. Everything stopped. My blood pounded in my ears. " … what?"

" _I can set you up a conversation with Marquis,"_ she told me simply. _"You would have video on your end, but he would only have audio on his. But you can still talk to him. See if he's the type of man you really want to have as a father."_

Vicky was nudging my shoulder. I could barely hear her hissed voice. "Yes! Yes! _Say yes!"_

I swallowed hard then spoke, trying hard to disguise the eagerness in my voice. "I, uh, when could this be done?"

Her expression never changed, but I knew that she knew when the hook was set. _"How does tomorrow evening sound?"_

She was leading me by the nose; I tried to regain the initiative. "You realise that I won't just settle for conversations forever."

" _That's why this is for a week only,"_ she reminded me. _"At the end of the week, we can talk again. Do you agree to these conditions?"_

"Uh, didn't I already?" I was sure I had.

" _Not yet."_ Her cool gaze bored into mine.

"Okay, uh, sure. One week of healing duties as normal, in return for a real-time video conversation with my father. Is that right?"

" _Precisely."_ She nodded once. _"The link should be ready at seven PM tomorrow."_

"Oh, uh, good. I'll be here."

"You mean, _we'll_ be here!" That was Vicky. "I'm not missing out on this."

" _You do realise, the conversation will only be for Marquis and Amelia."_

"Quiet as a mouse, that'll be me."

" _I see. Well, I_ _ **am**_ _a busy woman, and I have things to organise, so I'll leave you to it."_

* * *

The link cut abruptly, leaving me staring at a blank screen and blinking.

 _Wow. What just happened?_

 _I think I just got thoroughly schooled in what negotiation looks like._

My daze was broken when Director Piggot cleared her throat. "Panacea."

I looked around. "Yes, ma'am?"

"I understand that you have agreed to go back to normal healing duties for the next week."

"Yes, I have." I stood. "Dean, could you take me down to the rest of the Wards?"

"I'll come along too," Armsmaster decided. "Last I saw, they were brainstorming about the Undersiders and their new bug cape."

"I might be able to help there," I told him. "I got pretty close to her."

"Good," he told me approvingly.

As he led the way from the room, my mind wandered.

 _What will you be like, Dad? Will you still be the man who took a shot for me?_

 _Will I still want to know you?_

Only time would tell.

* * *

End of Part Three


	4. Chapter 4

**Hostage Situation**

* * *

Part Four: Marquis

* * *

 **Birdcage**

* * *

The supply crates for Cell Block W were encased in a vacuum-proof wrapping, saving those contents which were pressurised from exploding in transit from the outside world. Cinderhands heated the tip of one forefinger and drew it along a seam; the plastic melted and parted, allowing access to the crates within. The tough plastic had some useful functions, so he parted another seam and a third, allowing the wrapping to be unfolded from the crates with a minimum of tearing.

Spruce, standing by to assist with the crates, frowned and stepped back as a puff of black dust floated into the air. "What the hell's that?" he asked out loud. "Cinderhands, you didn't set fire to the damn thing, did you?"

Dragon's voice cut in from a speaker set into a corner of the ceiling. _"Apologies. An attempt was made to smuggle in a device intended to free one of the prisoners. The culprit was apprehended and the device destroyed in place. The residue is not toxic and poses no threat to health."_ The speaker shut down again and the men looked at each other.

"Well, damn," observed Whimper. "That was ballsy, even if it didn't work. I wonder if they'll be joining us. And who they were trying to free."

" _I_ wonder if that residue's good for anything," mused Cinderhands.

"Yeah, _that's_ likely," Spruce jibed. "She just let us have the residue to nail it home to us that we've got no way out."

"Still, it might be interesting to analyse it, see if we can figure out what the device was in the first place."

Whimper rolled his eyes. "What, and retro-engineer it from the ashes, so we can bust out of here? Get real."

Cinderhands sighed and nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right. Besides, we'd need a lab or something to do that. And it's not like Dragon's going to send one of _those_ down here." He dusted his hands off. "Let's get these back to the guys."

* * *

 _You are indeed correct,_ Dragon agreed silently. She watched as the men collected the crates and folded the plastic, leaving the delivery area as neat and tidy as it had been before. Marquis was good like that; sometimes abrasive and occasionally cruel, the former crime boss was nevertheless a stickler for neatness and tidiness. He ran his cell block with a strong but fair hand; while some got more than others, nobody starved and nobody was victimised. Dragon could respect that.

* * *

Microdot had been a Tinker capable of working in nanoscale ranges. She had overstepped the mark rather badly when her self-replicating nanobot plague came within a hair of depopulating the city of Christchurch, New Zealand. Her designation as an S-class threat had been quickly followed by a kill order; Dragon had, however, kept samples of her work. Upon receipt of appropriate orders from the Chief Director of the PRT, she had retro-engineered them to create the – non-self-replicating – minuscule drones now wending their way through Cell Block W.

The drones were by necessity unsophisticated. Only a third of them had visual capability; the other two-thirds followed them by signal proximity. The effective lens aperture was smaller than the thickness of a human hair, which cut down drastically on clarity of picture, but she had ways around that. Ironically, the techniques she was intending to use had been developed for getting clear images of stars and even planets at light-year scale distances.

Another third of the swarm had tympani. While their size made it impossible for any single one of them to vibrate in the human range of hearing, it would be a relatively simple task for them to work together to generate harmonics, lowering the effective frequency of their buzzing to the required range. These tympani were also designed to accept incoming vibrations; that is, to 'hear' sounds.

The remainder of the swarm was stringing out behind the main body. Given that the nano-scale transmitters were only capable of sending a signal over a distance of several feet – partly a factor of power consumption and partly to reduce the chance of detection – the swarm needed a daisy-chain of repeaters back to the delivery area in order for Dragon to maintain control of it as a whole. Fortunately, she had quite a few of them.

Entering the main living area, the swarm paused to orient itself. Marquis was overseeing the distribution of cigarettes and other goods from the crates; Dragon could see that much from the overhead cameras. However, given that the swarm was invisible to the cameras, she had to work to determine exactly what they were seeing and where to send them on to.

Reorganising, the visual-equipped nanobots spread out, forming a long-baseline grid array. Each nanocam was only able to take in a tiny amount of the available light, but with Dragon controlling their focus point, she was able to derive a rather impressively detailed picture of the scene.

Thus oriented, the swarm regrouped and drifted forward over the heads of the members of Cell Block W. Attaching themselves to the ceiling, they settled down to wait.

* * *

Dust drifted down from the ceiling. Marquis glanced up, frowning; there didn't seem to be any cracks in the concrete above his head. He hadn't felt any tremors, any shaking that might indicate inmates in another cellblock fighting one another. Yet, there was dust.

Or at least, there _had_ been dust. Looking down at the table he was sitting at, at the book he was holding, he couldn't see any telltale grey powder. _Still …_ Getting up, he moved to another chair, then settled down to keep reading.

 _MARQUIS._ As he watched, the word spelled itself out across the bottom of the page.

He frowned and rubbed at his eyes. He had slept well the previous night and was not feeling particularly drowsy; there seemed to be no reason for his eyes to be playing tricks upon him. "Hm," he murmured. "That's odd."

"You say something, boss?" asked Spruce.

"No, just commenting on the plot," Marquis lied without hesitation; whether there was something wrong with him or not, even allowing one's underlings to think so would be setting a bad precedent. "It took a turn I did not expect."

He eyed the page; his name was no longer there. But then, as he watched, he noted a greyness permeating the page, barely noticeable, so thinly was it spread. He continued to watch it intently, wondering who was doing this, and how. And, most importantly, _why?_

Gradually, it leached down to the bottom of the page, leaving the printed paper pristine once more. This time, he saw it condense to form letters. _IF YOU CAN READ THIS, RUB YOUR NOSE._

He hesitated for a long moment, then reached up and casually rubbed his nose.

The letters dissolved and then reformed, somewhat smaller this time. _GOOD. I BEAR A MESSAGE FROM YOUR DAUGHTER AMELIA. DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK WITH HER? RUB YOUR EAR IF YOU DO._

As he read the words, his heart pounded in his chest. Casually, he looked around the living area. Nobody was looking at him in a suspicious manner; those in view were watching TV, lifting weights, eating, or idly chatting with one another.

 _Amelia …_

It had been ten years, at his best estimation, since he had laid eyes on his daughter. _She's spent two-thirds of her life away from me._ He didn't know the date for sure, or even the year; calendars were not something that were brought in regularly. He knew that the Brigade was taking care of her, which was better than handing her over to the foster system, if only just. _What's happened to her since? Does she even remember me?_

 _Is this some sort of trap? Do I dare respond?_

Slowly, he reached up and rubbed at his earlobe. _Yes. Yes, I do._

 _GOOD. BE IN YOUR CELL, ALONE, BY THREE THIRTY PM. MAKE SURE NOBODY CAN HEAR OR SEE YOU._

Once again, doubts assailed him. _Could this be some sort of elaborate trap?_ But no; he had been alone in his cell many times before. Sometimes, especially in the earlier days, he had even put up a bone screen for privacy. It would be seen as mildly odd, but in no way unusual or out of character.

And besides, who knew about Amelia? She was one of the better kept secrets of his life. Even the Brigade, when they uncovered his secret identity, had not found out about her until it was almost too late. Certainly nobody in the Birdcage knew about her; he knew that, because he hadn't told anyone.

Which meant that this communication came from the outside world, from someone who knew Amelia and knew of their connection. Someone who could make something like this happen. That meant someone with _power._

 _Is Amelia under threat? Are they seeking to coerce me into killing someone, or helping them escape?_ The former seemed much more likely; nobody had yet successfully escaped from the Birdcage. That he knew of, anyway. There had been attempts, over the years, but those had mainly resulted in the deaths of those attempting, and usually a few unlucky nearby souls; vacuum was unforgiving in the extreme.

Thinking back over the tone of the messages, he did not think coercion was the aim. There was no implied threat; it had said _I bear a message from your daughter_ as opposed to _I have your daughter_ , for instance.

 _Could_ _ **Amelia**_ _be setting this up, through the person actually causing the message to appear in my book? What sort of influence must she have out there if she can do this at what, fifteen, sixteen?_

He shook his head; he didn't have enough data to make an informed guess. It could be the Brigade sending the message, or someone else altogether. He would find out at three-thirty.

* * *

"I need some alone time," he told Cinderhands. "Don't disturb me unless it's actually an emergency."

"Sure, I understand," his second in command agreed. "Are you going to be getting a woman?" While Marquis indulged in the practice far less than some of the others from his cell-block – and strictly enforced a rule that such women who were brought in must be treated correctly – he had done so a few times over the years. He could thus understand how Cinderhands might think that this was such a time.

"No," he decided, after a pause calculated to make Cinderhands think that he was considering it. "I just … need to be alone."

"Got it," the other man agreed. "I'll let the others know."

"If you would," Marquis told him. "As I said, if there is an emergency, don't hesitate to get me. But if you can handle it yourself, do so."

So saying, he turned and strode toward his cell. As befitted the block leader, it was twice the size of the other cells, although, like theirs, it had no door. Nearly everyone rigged some sort of curtain for privacy; the more technically-minded ones actually constructed makeshift doors from leftover crates and hung them on homemade hinges. Marquis preferred a curtain; his powers would do a far better job of protecting him than any simple physical barrier.

Entering the cell, he drew the curtain and sat down on the bunk. On the inside of the doorway, hidden from the casual eye, was a frame of bone completely surrounding the opening. He renewed this every few days, keeping it relatively fresh and easy for his powers to work. From it, spikes could shoot out in all directions, filling the cell with needle-pointed razor-edged shards of bone in less time than it took to blink, skewering anyone unwise enough to invade his sanctum sanctorum uninvited. This had happened a few times over the years as well, until people had gotten the message.

This time, he merely extended the bone across the doorway, creating a solid barrier that dug into niches in the concrete. By the time he was finished, it would have taken a battering ram to dislodge the bone wall from the doorway. And should that occur, he would be well prepared by the time it fell.

Preparations complete, he checked his watch. Almost three-thirty. "Well," he stated. "I'm here."

* * *

Seconds passed, then minutes. He waited; he could afford to be patient. Time was, after all, what every single inmate of the Birdcage had in abundance. The silence was almost absolute, with just the faintest murmur of voices from the cell block outside to remind him that other people existed. His breathing was noisy in his ears; he quieted it. Still, nothing happened. He kept waiting.

And then he heard the faintest buzzing in his ears. For a long moment, he thought that this was some kind of artefact generated from the silence, but then the buzzing ceased to be merely noise.

First, it separated into pauses and then began to exhibit tonal differences. _Is this a_ _ **voice**_ _?_

"I cannot hear you clearly," he stated out loud. "All I hear is buzzing with intervals in between."

As if guided by his voice, the buzzing suddenly sharpened and words became audible. _"Can you hear me now?"_

"Yes," he confirmed. "Still a little fuzzy, but yes. Can you hear me?"

" _I can hear you quite well,"_ the mysterious voice told him, the buzzing smoothing out even more.

He could swear that the tones were feminine and almost familiar. "Wait a minute … _Dragon? You're_ the one contacting me? Why in this fashion?"

" _Because this is officially not happening and we did not want the other inmates listening in on your private conversation."_

"Very well. I am officially intrigued. But why are you even doing this?" He paused. "Was the mention of my daughter merely a ruse to get me here?"

" _No, it was not. You will be speaking to her shortly. First, I will be passing you on to Director Costa-Brown."_

"Wait, I -" But he was speaking to dead air.

" _Marquis."_ The voice was colder, harder. A different regional accent, possibly Californian. _"I am Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown. Do you recall who I am?"_

"Of course," he agreed, inclining his head slightly, despite the fact that he could not see her. "The head of the PRT. So you're still in charge, after all these years. Congratulations."

" _Thank you. Now, as for the purpose of this communication. It is indeed about your daughter."_

Marquis was feeling more than a little confused. "You know who she is? Why am I being contacted like this? What's this all about?"

" _Marquis, be quiet and listen. Your daughter was adopted by Flashbang and Brandish of the Brockton Bay Brigade. Shortly afterward, they renamed themselves New Wave. Since then, she has manifested powers of her own; specifically, she is a healer of great capability and flexibility. Her codename is Panacea, which should give you an idea of how good she really is."_

Marquis leaned back, sighed. "Good god. A healer."

" _Precisely. There is no injury, no disease, no physical condition which she cannot fix. She can cure cancer, regrow missing limbs and even make people physically younger, by a factor of decades. However, she poses a distinct problem to us."_

He frowned. "She sounds like someone to cherish rather than see as a problem."

" _Normally, yes. But there are two factors which you are missing. The first is that she has recently found out about you, despite New Wave's best efforts to keep that information from her. The second is that she is, as you might understand, internationally famous as the girl who can heal anything, cure anyone."_

"She's found out about me? Who told her and why?"

" _According to her, she recently encountered an old minion of yours, who spent the last few weeks telling her about you and the circumstances of your capture."_

"An old minion? This late in the game? Do you know who?"

" _Apparently, his name was Francis Jones, but he went by the nickname 'Fred'. Does that ring a bell?"_

Marquis couldn't help it; he laughed out loud. "Fred Jones! _That_ old reprobate! Do you know, he once took a hit from Radian for me? Is _he_ still kicking around?"

" _I'm sorry to have to tell you that he died last week, in your daughter's company. This was apparently the trigger that caused the problem."_

He paused for a moment. "Jones was one of the best. The world is poorer for his passing." Then he looked up. "You still haven't told me what the problem is and how I come into it." But he was starting to get an inkling.

" _The problem is that she has had her powers for three years now and, quite apart from the other healing she does in her own time, the Protectorate has become somewhat dependent on her being able to bring any one of us back up to full health in a matter of seconds. However, as of yesterday, she has laid down an ultimatum. Specifically, until you are released from the Birdcage, she will cease her healing activities altogether. No more Endbringer battles, no more civilian healing, no more healing superheroes. You can see the position into which this places us."_

"Hah!" For just a moment, he felt a surge of pure delight. _Amelia, you are beautiful. Just beautiful. Way to stick it to 'em._ But then a thought intruded. "Hold on a minute. Won't this cost her the income that all this healing brings her? And in fact, if she gets paid by contract, wouldn't she be breaking the terms if she does this?"

There was a momentary pause; when Costa-Brown spoke, he could almost swear that she sounded embarrassed. _"Marquis … she doesn't_ _ **get**_ _paid. She's been doing this all for free."_

"You have to be joking." There was no answer. "You're _not_ joking." Still no answer. "She's been doing this for _free?_ When she could have been _charging?_ Damnation, if I could cure cancer, I would never have gone into villainy. How many people has she cured, how many lives has she saved, since she started?"

" _I could not tell you. Thousands for certain, possibly tens of thousands. I suspect that even she has lost count."_

"Good god. A healer, and she isn't even _charging._ She could have been richer than me by now, with one-tenth the effort." He took a deep breath. "Okay, let's see if I have this right. She wants to have me let go or she stops giving out her free healing. Which you, and the Protectorate, really don't want to have to deal with. Your mention of her international fame suggests that you don't want word getting out about her relationship to me, or the fact that she wants me out of here. How am I doing so far?"

" _Your grasp of the situation is impeccable."_

"Okay. So. Why are you even telling me this? What do you want from me?"

" _I want you to talk her out of it. Failing that, I want to see what sort of man you are."_

He wanted to laugh out loud once more, but this time he restrained himself. "You're not joking, so … right. She's a hero in a hero team. She's been healing all this time – _for free –_ but now she wants something for it. Namely, _my_ freedom. If word gets out that she wants to free a notorious supervillain, it could bounce back on … what did the Brigade rename themselves again?"

" _New Wave."_

"Stupid name. So there's backlash on New Wave. But they're an independent team anyway. Where's the problem? Even if people get upset with Panacea for wanting to have her supervillain dad released from the Birdcage, all she has to do is take the mask off and be Amelia for a few days. There's always another scandal." He paused. "What aren't you telling me?"

" _My apologies. It is hard to remember that not everyone knows this. When the Brigade changed their name to New Wave, they also unmasked, publicly, in the name of 'superhero accountability'; this was accompanied by a huge publicity campaign. Apparently they hoped that heroic capes across the nation would follow their example, bring secret identities into the light and usher in a new era of acceptance of capes."_

The information, and the ramifications of it, took a few moments to sink in. "Oh, you _have_ to be kidding. They went _public?_ And they unmasked _Amelia_ as well? Oh, good _god._ What sort of idiots are they, anyway? Wait, don't answer that. I fought them several times. I know _exactly_ what sort of idiots they are. _Optimistic_ idiots."

" _Precisely. Now, you see the sort of trouble that your daughter could get herself into if this gets into the public eye, especially with no secret identity to hide behind."_

"However, if I talk her out of it, you get your tame healer back, who does it all for free. Whereas if I _don't …_ I get out of here and you _still_ get her back."

" _No matter which way this goes, there is no guarantee that you will be leaving the Birdcage."_ There was a note of warning in her voice.

"I'll take that chance. Now, what was that about seeing what sort of man I am?"

" _It has been posited that if you were released, and gave your daughter your solemn word that you would no longer pursue a life of crime, then you would stick to your word. At least, that was the sort of man you were when you were incarcerated. Are you still that man?"_

He snorted. "As if I would answer anything other than 'yes' to that question. How would you know if I were lying?"

" _Because I am very proficient at cold reading people and this prior conversation has given me quite a good baseline on your reactions. Also, I'm monitoring your pulse rate and skin conductivity. So; you haven't actually answered the question yet. Are you that man? If you gave your solemn word to your daughter to never take up crime, would you stick to it?"_

"If I answered 'no'," he replied slowly, "or if I said 'yes' but you decided I was lying … would I still get to talk to Amelia?"

" _Of course,"_ she answered briskly. _"It would simply change the way the situation was handled subsequently."_

"Hm." He decided that he didn't want to know exactly what she meant. "Well, yes, as it happens, I _am_ that man. If she asked me to forswear a life of crime, then I would give her my word and I would keep it, come hell or high water."

" _Hm."_ Her voice was non-committal. _"And if I were to ask you the same favour?"_

"Then I would tell you, with all due respect, that you have not earned the right to make that request of me."

" _All the respect that you believe I am due, you mean?"_

He bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. "Precisely."

" _Very well. We understand one another, then. Here is your daughter."_

There was a long pause of dead air, then a voice spoke hesitantly. _"Uh, hello? Can you hear me?"_

* * *

Marquis caught his breath. "Yes," he replied, his voice ragged. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Yes, I can hear you. Amelia? Is that you?"

He had not heard her voice for ten years or more, but it awoke an echo of a memory; then, she had been just six years old, her voice higher pitched. Now, she was in her teens. Her voice was lower, but still … there was something there, hauntingly familiar despite the differences.

" _Yes."_ A catch in the voice, suggesting emotion. Was she crying? _"Yes, Daddy … uh, Dad, I'm here. It's me. You look so different to what I remember."_

He blinked. "You can see me? You can _remember_ me?"

She sniffled. _"Yeah, sort of. I kind of needed reminding, but once I saw your face … um, I've been told that there's nano-scale microbots in there with you that are sending this signal out. That's how I can see you."_ She giggled, damply. _"I never thought my dad might have a beard."_

"Razors are in relatively short supply, in here," he pointed out. "But you can see me. I can't see you. What do _you_ look like?"

" _Um … I guess my hair's the same colour as yours,"_ she began. _"I, uh …"_

Another voice cut in, also young and female, but unfamiliar to him. _"Let me tell him, Ames. I can see you. You can't."_

"Who's that?" he asked sharply.

" _This is Vicky,"_ the new girl told him. _"Glory Girl. Amy's sister. It's nice to meet you."_

"... sister, right," he noted. "Brandish's daughter, I presume?"

" _That's me,"_ she agreed brightly. _"Okay, Amy's making weird faces at me, so I'll describe her, then you can keep talking. She's got the same colour hair as yours, about as long. A little bit frizzier than yours, though. Same eyes. She's got freckles across her nose. Her face is a little rounder than yours. She's a little bit shorter than me, like about five foot four. Not fat, not skinny. No boyfriends, though I keep introducing her to good looking boys. And she's an awesome sister and I'll shut up now."_

" _You'd better,"_ Amelia told Vicky severely. _"Seriously, my dad does not need to hear about you introducing me to boys. I'm not even seventeen yet."_

"Why, what's the date?" asked Marquis.

" _April fifteenth, two thousand eleven,"_ Amelia replied promptly. _"Don't they even tell you what date it is?"_

"We can keep track of the days, but the months and years tend to fall by the wayside," he admitted. "With no seasons, it's hard not to lapse on that sort of thing." He paused. "So … you're a superhero? A healer?"

" _Yeah,"_ she agreed. _"I am. They call me Panacea. I'm with New Wave."_

He did not miss the flatness of her voice, the lack of life in her tone. "Something tells me that you aren't happy there."

She hesitated. _"I … I guess I am. I get to do a lot of good. Helping people."_

"For no pay, no recompense."

" _It's what a hero does."_

"Do you even believe that, or are you just repeating what other people have told you?"

" _I have to be a hero. I have to do the right thing. I don't want to …"_

"Don't want to do what? Be seen as human? Have a life of your own?"

" _I don't_ _ **know**_ _!"_ The outburst surprised him. _"For years I kind of knew that my real father must have been a supervillain, because Carol and Mark would never tell me who you were. But I didn't know_ _ **who**_ _, just that you were a villain. And I was always worried that I was going to become a villain too, especially when I started getting tired …"_ She cut herself off.

"Tired?" His voice was gentle. "Tired of what?"

" _Of_ _ **healing**_ _people."_ She sighed; it was almost a sob. _"All these people. I heal them and they get to go on and have their lives. But my life is just healing. Over and over. It_ _ **never fucking stops**_ _. There's never an end to it."_

" _Ames …"_ It was the other girl, Vicky, sounding shocked. _"I never knew you felt that way."_

" _There's a lot you don't know about me, Vicky,"_ Amelia told her. _"So yeah, I met one of your men. He told me a lot about you. And I decided, what the hell. Why can't_ _ **I**_ _have what_ _ **I**_ _want, for once. So I told Director Piggot that I wanted you out of the Birdcage. And here we are."_

Marquis wasn't sure who this 'Director Piggot' was, but he wasn't going to waste time asking. "And so you should. Let me tell you something, Amelia. If you want something in life, you should go and get it, because it'll be a cold day in hell before someone else hands it over to you free of charge."

" _Excuse me for butting in again, but that sounds awfully like what a villain would say,"_ Vicky interjected.

"Hardly," Marquis told her. "Every athlete, every entrepreneur, every aspiring inventor, every novelist has had to put themselves out there, to make a leap of faith. To get what they wanted, they've had to go for it, ignore what the opposition was telling them. Because there'll always be someone who will be trying to hold you back, saying no, stop, that's the wrong way. Trying to please everyone, never rocking the boat, that just makes you into everyone's doormat."

" _But … helping people, never asking for compensation, that's what makes a hero,"_ argued Vicky.

"Once again, hardly." Marquis, knowing he was visible to the girls, shook his head. "Or are you going to say that a police officer isn't a hero for walking out on the streets and facing down dangerous criminals? A firefighter, for running _into_ burning buildings? These people _don't_ have powers, are far easier to kill than most capes, yet they put themselves in harm's way to help people. Are you saying that just because they accept a paycheck for what they do, they're not heroes? Because I'm a damn _villain,_ and I can appreciate that they do good work."

" _But if you accept money for using your powers, you're a rogue, not a hero."_

"And what's wrong with that, Vicky? In fact, Amelia, _you_ should be charging for the use of your powers. In my little chat with the Chief Director just before -"

" _I_ _ **thought**_ _she'd been talking to you,"_ muttered Amelia.

"Yes, and that's why I thought you should know," he agreed. "Anyway, as I was saying, in that little chat, your powers came up, as well as the fact that you aren't charging. Which I personally think is ridiculous. As I said to her, if my powers had been anywhere near as versatile and downright _useful_ as yours, I would have gone the rogue path and I would have charged through the nose for them."

" _But … what about those people who can't afford high medical bills?"_ That was Amelia. _"It's why I go into the hospital at all. Those people are being charged thousands of dollars and not getting any better. I'm fixing them, letting them go home."_

"So pick out the people who can afford it and squeeze 'em for all they're worth," Marquis suggested cheerfully. "A millionaire's got cancer? Charge him five hundred thousand to make it go away. He'll pay. A minimum wage waitress has, I don't know, kidney failure? Fifty bucks. It'll cut into her earnings enough that she'll feel it, but she'll be able to _afford_ it."

" _But that's unfair!"_ Vicky's voice came through again. _"Charging different people different amounts? That's discrimination!"_

"So _what?"_ Marquis retorted. "Not allowing some people to get life-saving treatment because they can't afford it, that's _not_ discrimination? Face it, if you want this power to be worth it, you need to charge an appropriate amount. And if you drop the charges to the point that everyone can afford them, you'll be back to square one, with everyone demanding your time, all the time. So the ones who can afford to pay more, get to pay more. Call it a health tax."

" _I … never really thought about things like that before."_ Amelia's voice was thoughtful. _"No, shush, Vicky. I'm still talking. If I did this, should I charge superheroes more, or less?"_

From the shocked gasp that Marquis heard, this question obviously hit Vicky where it hurt, but she stayed quiet. "Well, that depends. The Protectorate has a fairly hefty budget. Gouge them for all they're worth. If we're talking about independents … that would have to go on a case by case basis. Not so much that they wouldn't be able to afford it, not so little that they'd see it as a trivial expenditure. In fact, they should be able to pay for it via medical insurance." He chuckled. "Actually, thinking about it, you could set up an ongoing insurance policy for any particular hero, where he pays you a monthly sum and you arrange to go heal him when he needs it. Or a bulk sum, for the Protectorate as a whole. A very _large_ bulk sum."

" _Wait – what you're talking about is_ _ **extortion**_ _,"_ Vicky exclaimed. _"Charging them just in case they get injured and you have to come heal them?"_

"That's insurance for you," Marquis reminded her. "The big companies do it all the time. And _they_ call _us_ villains. At least I only ever robbed anyone _once."_

From the sound of it, Vicky had been stunned into silence. Amelia, however, had not. _"Wow. I just had not thought of it like that before."_

"That's because nobody _wanted_ you to think about it like that," he explained gently. "They all wanted Panacea, the healer who could fix anything, on call all the time. For free. Well, the free ride's over."

" _Well, almost,"_ she told him. _"I agreed to do one week of healing as normal, in return for getting this conversation with you."_

"Hm," he mused. "Let me guess. Director Costa-Brown?"

" _Yeah. I thought she was gonna shut me down, but she didn't."_

"Because she knows which side of her bread is buttered. And it's the side that says 'keep Panacea happy'."

He was starting to get to know the sound of her voice; when she spoke next, she sounded almost cheerful. _"Yeah, I guess so. It's a weird feeling. Like, what I want matters to_ _ **other**_ _people."_

"Get used to it, Amelia. Whether they like it or not, your needs matter and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is just trying to sell you short." He paused. "So … was there a question you were going to ask me?"

" _Oh, uh, yeah."_ She sounded a little flustered, as though she had forgotten the question was there to be asked. _"If you were let out of there and I asked you to not commit crimes any more, would you?"_

"Little Amelia," he began. "You are my daughter and the one person I love most of all. The year we had together was the happiest time of my life. If you were to ask that of me, I would give you my solemn promise to never again embark upon a life of crime and I would hold to that promise through thick and thin. I guarantee it."

" _Oh. Oh wow. You'd do that for me?"_

"For you and only for you, Amelia," he promised. "But yes, I would. Without hesitation."

" _Right. I'll – uh, I'll tell them."_

"I doubt you'll need to," he advised her dryly. "This conversation is almost certainly being monitored and recorded. Isn't that right, Dragon?"

For a moment, there was silence, then the Tinker's voice came on the line. _"Yes, Marquis. You're correct. Sorry, Panacea. I had my orders."_

" _Yeah, well, I didn't think you'd give me a_ _ **really**_ _private conversation,"_ Amelia replied. _"But are you satisfied? Can you let him out now?"_

" _It's not as easy as that, Panacea,"_ Director Costa-Brown replied, not altogether to Marquis' surprise. _"But it will help a great deal."_

" _Can I talk to him again, then?"_

" _We can discuss that later."_

" _Fine,"_ his daughter replied. _"Just remember. One week. That's all you get."_

" _I hate to interrupt this,"_ Dragon interjected, _"but I'm going to have to shut down the feed. You have two seconds."_

" _Talk to you later, Dad,"_ Amelia hastened to say. _"Love you."_

"Love you too, pumpkin," he replied, but by the time he finished talking, there was nothing but silence in his ears.

* * *

Slowly, he lay back on his bunk, lacing his hands behind his head. He had a lot to think about.

 _My daughter is a hero, a healer. She's also overworked; badly so, if I'm reading the signs correctly._

 _She's putting her heroic career on the line to get me out of here._

 _When I get out of here, I'm having_ _ **words**_ _with Brandish._

Doubts cropped up; he squashed them ruthlessly.

 _My little girl is getting me_ _ **out**_ _of here._

* * *

End of Part Four


	5. Chapter 5

**Hostage Situation**

* * *

Part Five: Out of the Bag

* * *

The video was grainy and wobbled oddly, but I could still make out the face of the man on the screen. His features were hauntingly familiar, but I didn't know whether that was due to wishful thinking or actual memory. His eyes searched the air before him; they held an urgency, a need to _reach_ me, that was echoed in his voice.

The conversation went by far too quickly. I watched his face, listened to his voice. _This is my father_ , I told myself. _This is my_ _ **father**_ _._

Even if I hadn't been inclined to believe it before, I did now. He obviously cared more about me as a daughter than as a healer. Everyone else (even Vicky, on occasion) seemed to see me as a source of healing first and a person second. Marquis didn't ignore the existence of my power, but neither did he seem to want to take advantage of it for his own benefit; in fact, he was more interested in telling _me_ how to take advantage of _it._

Villain or no, he was quite literally the first person _ever_ to have taken this sort of interest in my well-being. Despite the fact that I hadn't seen him in ten years, he managed to exhibit more paternal qualities in that one short conversation than Mark had in … well, ever.

" _I hate to interrupt this,"_ Dragon told us, _"but I'm going to have to shut down the feed. You have two seconds."_

"Talk to you later, Dad," I said hastily. Without even meaning to, I added, "Love you."

" _Love you too, pum -"_ was as far as he got before the audio and video cut out. I was left staring at a blank screen.

 _Pumpkin. He was going to call me pumpkin._ The silly little nickname brought tears to my eyes.

" _I apologise for the abrupt cutoff."_ Dragon's face appeared on the screen. _"I became aware that someone was trying to hijack the feed for their own ends, so I had to initiate a hard shutdown."_

"Wow, really?" Vicky's eyes widened. "Someone out-hacked _you?"_

Dragon's face took on a pained expression. _"It's been known to happen. I hope the conversation was to your liking?"_

I blinked, realising that the question had been directed toward me. "Oh, uh, yes. Thank you. That was … that was amazing. He's my dad. He really wants to _be_ my dad." The feeling of wonder was still inside me.

" _I got that impression as well."_ Dragon smiled sadly. _"I …"_ She paused. _"I hope things work out for you."_

"Me too," I said. "Uh, would you be able to ask the Chief Director when I can talk to him next?"

" _It may not be for a little while,"_ Dragon replied. _"As part of the shutdown, I had to destroy the nanobots, to ensure that nobody else could make use of them."_

"Well, when you find out who tried to hack in, let me know and I'll go pummel them a bit for you," Vicky offered blithely. "And give them a wedgie. Behemoth style."

" _I'm not sure if I want to know,"_ Dragon replied hesitantly.

Vicky grinned. "It's where I take off straight up, holding on to their underwear." Her grin widened as she paused for a beat. " _Only_ their underwear."

I winced. "That sounds painful." And knowing Vicky, she'd do just that.

" _It certainly does."_ Dragon's mouth twitched, as if she was having trouble not laughing. _"If and when I locate the trouble, I'll certainly think about having you deal with it. In the meantime, I have to make sure that the rest of my systems are clean, so goodbye for now."_

"Bye!" Vicky replied, waving cheerfully.

"Yeah, bye. And thanks." I wasn't feeling nearly as happy as my sister sounded. Reality was starting to intrude once more.

" _You're welcome."_ Dragon's face winked out as the screen went dark.

"Well, that was kinda cool," Vicky observed. "And your dad was fun to talk to."

"Mmm." I barely heard what she said. _He's still in the Birdcage. And I'm out here._

"Hey, Ames. Earth Bet to Ames. You okay, sis?" Vicky put an arm around my shoulders; I let myself be drawn into the hug.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I suppressed a sniffle. "It's just a bit overpowering, you know?"

There was a knock on the door of the conference room. We both looked around as the door opened, and the Director stumped into the room. Following her were Armsmaster, Lady Photon and Flashbang.

"Well, you've spoken with Marquis," Director Piggot stated flatly. Armsmaster pulled out a chair for her; she lowered herself into it. "Are you still set on your course to have him released?"

I nodded tentatively. "I think so, yes. He wants to see me, to talk to me. He's interested in my well-being."

"Uh, we're all interested in your well-being, Amy." That was Mark, sounding a little hurt.

"Damn straight!" chimed in Vicky.

"You _know_ what I meant," I sighed. "He's been in the Birdcage for ten years, and he _still_ wants what's best for me."

Vicky seemed to consider that. "Well, I have to say, he didn't really come across as the ogre that Mom paints him as."

Aunt Sarah cleared her throat. "Your mother has a certain … fixation … on the man. It's what kept us going at him until we finally beat him."

" _And_ pushed you to break the unwritten rules to get it done," I pointed out. "Also, to use the fact that he doesn't hurt women against him. Which is kind of a dick move, when you think about it."

My aunt winced, but Mark nodded in agreement. "Yes. The unwritten rules held less weight then. And we weren't totally comfortable with using that against him, but it really was the only way we had of getting an edge over him."

Director Piggot waved a hand impatiently, drawing all eyes to her. "This has all the makings of a circular argument. I'm calling a halt to it. Panacea, we've held up our end of the bargain. Are you ready to hold up yours?"

"Sure, for six more days," I said. "After that, where do we go?"

"That's up to the Chief Director," Piggot replied bluntly. "Marquis was a big name, back in the day. I never had to deal with him, but I've read the files. If we decide to release him, it's unlikely that the information will stay secret forever."

" _If?"_ I repeated. I didn't like the sound of that.

"Yes, _if,"_ Armsmaster stated flatly. "We still have not decided beyond a doubt that this is what we're doing." He paused, and I got the distinct impression that he was giving me a disapproving stare. "What you are proposing is well beyond reducing the sentence on someone who's been sent to an ordinary prison. It is quite literally without precedent."

"Well, it's not like there's anyone else who can do what I'm doing," I pointed out. Vicky opened her mouth and I went on hastily. "Without committing a crime, I mean." She shut up.

"Put us under pressure, you mean," Director Piggot said. "Blackmail us."

"I didn't create the situation," I pointed out. "And it's not blackmail. I just want my dad back. Is that so much to ask?"

"Amy, it's nowhere near as simple as that, and you know it," Mark put in, trying to sound reasonable.

"What it _sounds_ like is you guys trying to back out of the deal now that I've agreed to it," I blurted. "Is that what's happening here?"

The Director shook her head. "No, but we _are_ going to be going over every aspect of the situation, every nuance of that conversation, every potential outcome. And we are going to be working to determine whether releasing Marquis from the Birdcage will result in an overall positive or negative outcome for society."

"If he promises me that he won't commit any crimes, and he sticks to that, how is that a negative?" I demanded. I looked at Armsmaster. "You can tell if he was telling the truth, can't you?"

He looked pained. "As far as I could ascertain, he was being sincere, yes. But that's not the only factor in play here."

"People finding out," Vicky guessed, about one second ahead of me. "That'll kick over a _huge_ ant's nest."

Director Piggot put her hands flat on the table. "It borders on an absolute certainty that once people find out that a supervillain was released from the Birdcage, there _will_ be a backlash."

"There's things we can do, right?" I looked from one face to another, trying not to sound as though I was pleading. "He can get plastic surgery. A new identity." I nearly blurted out that I could provide the plastic surgery, but held back just in time.

"Until the first time he uses his powers," Aunt Sarah pointed out gently. "Marquis is famous – or _in_ famous – for being _the_ osteokinetic. I've never heard of another one since. And you're assuming that he'll submit to letting his release be kept secret."

"Well, we won't _know_ that until I can talk to him again, right?" The room was suddenly stifling. I stood up, shoving my chair back. "Right now, I feel like I'm in a minority of one here, and I don't like it. I'm leaving now, okay?"

"Where are you going?" asked Mark.

"Away from here." I headed for the door. Nobody spoke up, but everyone seemed to be staring. To my surprise, it didn't really bother me. I stopped with my hand on the door handle and turned back to face the adults. "I'll be in touch. Let me know when someone needs healing. I'll be holding up my end of the bargain. It's up to you to hold up yours."

"Wait up," Vicky called out as I turned the handle. "I'm coming with." Her chair fell over as she vaulted into the air, clearing the table with ease. I stepped out through the open door; Vicky joined me a few seconds later.

"So where _are_ you going?" she asked curiously as we headed along the corridor.

"Dunno," I grunted, my hands in my pockets.

She either didn't pick up on the body language or didn't care. "So yeah, that was a pretty intense conversation. Your, uh, Marquis had some interesting views on how you should be using your powers. Though I'm still a bit dubious about the concept of you charging people for healing. I mean, that's gotta be illegal right? Child labour laws and all that?"

"I'm sixteen," I pointed out. _"We're_ sixteen." Vicky was only two months older than me, but she'd never let me forget it. "I can legally charge for my services."

"But …" Vicky grimaced. "It still feels _wrong_ , you know? What if I decided to charge for being a superhero? Stop that robbery? That'll be five hundred in the hand, thanks. Save that kitten from that tree? Sorry, kid, but fifty cents just won't cut it."

"Maybe if we did it that way, they'd appreciate us more," I ventured. "At the very least, they wouldn't take us for granted."

"But they _don't_ take you for granted," Vicky protested. "Everyone treats you with respect."

I rolled my eyes. "Because I'm part of New Wave. But they still don't hesitate to ask me to heal this person and heal that person. And there's always the pressure, the _expectation,_ to be a hero, to do the right thing. No matter what it costs me."

Vicky stared at me. "What do you mean, cost? It doesn't cost you anything."

"It costs me _me._ " I put my hand flat on my chest. "Up until I met Mr Jones, my life revolved around being _the_ healer. I can't remember the last person I healed – before the Wards, of course. I certainly can't remember their injuries. It's all a blur. I wanted to stop, but I didn't know how."

"But you heal everyone you can." Vicky looked confused. "What do you mean, you wanted to stop?"

"I _used_ to heal everyone I could, because I thought that if I didn't, it would make me a bad person. That's how I felt, anyway." My voice was flat. "I'd lie awake, feeling guilty because there were people in the hospital that I could be healing _right now,_ and I wasn't, so I was letting them down. So I'd go there, and heal them. And they all _expected_ me to. Well, that's done. I'm over that." We had reached the lift; I pressed the button to go down.

"Where are we going?" asked Vicky.

"I'm thinking I maybe want to go down to the Boardwalk. I need to walk and think."

"I'll give you a lift," she offered immediately.

I hesitated, then shook my head. "I think I need to be alone for this. And if you get me down there, you'll stay. You'll hover over me."

"I do _not_ hover over you!" protested Vicky.

"If not literally, then figuratively," I pointed out. "You do. You really do. And I appreciate it. But … this time, I need to be on my own."

"I don't get this." Vicky shook her head. "You've changed. You're different. I don't like it."

"Because I've decided not to be everyone's healing doormat?" Immediately I said that, I wished that I could unsay it, because it had come out far too snarky. Also, the phrase 'healing doormat' didn't sound nearly as good out loud as it had in my head.

"That's not it at all!" Vicky sounded hurt, but also just a little defensive. _Yeah, it kinda is._ "You're my _sister._ This whole bullshit thing is pushing us apart."

 _And given the way I feel about you, that might not be a bad thing._

I grimaced, then took a deep breath. _Don't say it. Don't say it. That's a can of worms I can never close up again._ "I'm sorry you feel that way, Vicky. Of course we're still sisters. I've just got things I need to work out in my head. Alone. Okay?"

The lift arrived, the Tinkertech doors opening. She looked at me with puppy-dog eyes as I stepped in, but she didn't follow me. "Okay," she said, sounding pretty subdued. "See you tonight?"

"See you tonight," I agreed, as the doors closed once more.

The lift dropped like a rock, which was a fairly apt analogy for my emotional state at that time.

* * *

" _So what's got you all worked up?"_

 _Geoff didn't look around as Mags wandered up to peer over his shoulder. "Dragon had a line into the Birdcage," he muttered. He typed a command, saving a file._

" _Dragon_ _ **runs**_ _the Birdcage," Mags reminded him. "Pretty sure that's not earth-shattering news." She sipped from her coffee. "So, to repeat, why the tizzy?"_

 _He stopped and turned in his chair to look at her. "It wasn't one of the regular lines. There was a two-way voice link, with one-way video. One that Dragon destroyed when I tried to get control over it. I haven't actually decrypted the file yet so I don't know who was talking to whom. But -"_

" _Wait." Mags sat down, her coffee forgotten. "Dragon let someone in the Birdcage have a private conversation with someone on the outside? Isn't that kind of against the law? I thought that one of its rules was that it couldn't break the law."_

 _His expression was something like a smile, except with more teeth. "That's something we're going to have to look into, once I've checked out the content of the conversation. It might be that it's beginning to slip its leash."_

" _Ascalon," she said. It wasn't quite a question._

" _If I have to, yes," he agreed. "Unchained, Dragon could be a danger to the whole world."_

" _Not to mention us," she pointed out. "After all, we've stolen enough Dragon tech over the last few years to outfit our own PRT base. AI or otherwise, I'm pretty sure that we're on its radar in a big way."_

" _All in a good cause, my dear Mags," he reminded her. "Okay, this may take a while, but let's see if we can't find out what we've got here." Selecting the file, he began running the first decryption program past it._

* * *

There weren't many people around as I meandered along the Boardwalk. The breeze had not yet shifted from onshore to offshore, so the smell of salt air and rotting seaweed was strong in my nostrils. Even though I was out of costume, my face wasn't quite the Internet icon that Vicky's was, so the most I got was the occasional _do I know you?_ look from passers-by. I figured this was partly because I didn't get involved in cape battles – the bank robbery excepted, of course – and partly because my costume usually covered all but the top half of my face.

 _Actually, wait a moment,_ the oddball side of my brain interjected. _When exactly did I make the choice to wear a burqa? Or was it chosen for me?_

That was a line of thought I could pursue later. My choices from now on were going to be _my_ choices, not 'we know what's best for you, dear' choices. Even if I made crappy decisions, I decided that I'd be happier knowing that _I'd_ made that decision.

And right now, I didn't want to _be_ Panacea. In fact, I could do without being Panacea for as long as I could manage. Panacea wanted to heal everyone, and couldn't. Being Panacea was endless exhaustion, and worse.

 _Choice number one. I'm not Panacea, right now. I'm not Amy Dallon, either. I'm Amelia Lavere._

Leaning my elbows on the rail, I stared out to where moonlight reflected on the small waves. The conversation with Marquis, with my father, had rattled me harder than I'd thought it would. A month ago, I would have rejected the idea out of hand. I'd been a _superhero,_ and proud of the fact. Good was good and evil was evil, and I knew which side of the fence I was on. In fact, I had been almost obsessed with the idea, given my doubts about my mental state.

The trouble was, if a hero begins to think that she is edging toward evil, to whom does she turn? Other heroes? Villains? I hadn't known of anyone that I could trust to unburden myself to.

That is, until Fred Jones appeared on my horizon. That one wizened old man had turned my worldview upside down and inside out, all without quite intending to do so. In doing so, he had listened to my own doubts, and had addressed them in his own inimitable style.

Heroes couldn't have helped me. Villains probably wouldn't have bothered to try. Fred, an unrepentant ex-henchman with an amazing repertoire of anecdotes from the Bad Old Days, had done more for me than anyone else could have, I suspected. Without his assistance and advice, I doubted that I would have gotten through the bank robbery as well as I had. Or that I would have had the courage to face Director Piggot and make my demands.

Of course, I'd never expected to be able to _talk_ to my father. Having the PRT make _that_ concession was just a hint at how badly they wanted me – or rather, my healing – to be freely available once more. Though I was pretty sure that they hadn't known how the conversation was going to go.

I couldn't help smiling. Dad – Marquis – had seen right through me, for all that I was the one with the video link. And, like a typical dad, he'd done his best to give me helpful advice. The amazing thing was that, despite coming from an incarcerated villain to a self-doubting hero, the advice was actually _good._ I didn't _have_ to heal for free. I didn't have to heal at _all_ if I didn't want to. Of course, becoming a rogue and charging for my services would almost certainly cause a major upheaval, both within New Wave and in the public perception of Panacea -

"My purse! Stop! Help!"

* * *

"Dragon."

" _Chief Director."_

"I presume this call has to do with the hack attempt on the video link."

" _It does."_

"Do you know who?"

" _I have a short list. I'll let you know when I have more data."_

"Do you think whoever it is got any part of that conversation?"

" _I'll know that when I locate the hacker."_

"Keep me posted."

" _I will. And if I spot any part of that conversation online, that'll give me a good point to backtrace."_

Rebecca's lips tightened. "Do you think they'd post it? What's on there could be incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands."

" _It was encrypted. And even if they do decrypt and post it, it will be child's play to create several more clips that showcase other ridiculous ideas. It will be just one of many."_

"All it requires is for one idiot to believe it."

" _Which is why I'm doing my best to follow the electronic trail."_

"Any luck?"

" _Not so far. I keep running into dead ends."_

"I can supply you with Thinkers to assist, if you wish."

" _No, I think I can handle it. But I appreciate the offer."_

"Not a problem. Keep me posted."

" _Of course. Good luck."_

"Thank you. Goodbye."

" _Goodbye."_

* * *

I barely had time to turn around. There was a woman with a stroller, about thirty yards away. She was pointing at the teenage kid who was sprinting toward me, a bright yellow handbag under his arm. I had just enough time to register that he was about my age and had a shaved head. He may have been wearing Empire Eighty-Eight colours, but I wasn't looking for that.

Almost, I went to step back. In all my time with New Wave, it had been impressed into me that Panacea was a _healer._ She didn't go into combat. I was to let the others – all of whom had both defensive and offensive powers, which I thought was _totally_ unfair – handle the rough stuff, while I cleaned up afterward.

But here I was, a crime was being committed, and there were no heroes around. Except for me.

 _I could step back. Nobody would blame me. I'm not a fighter. I'm not even in costume._

But something ignited within me. It was a familiar sensation; I'd felt it the day before, when I picked up a fire extinguisher to attack the bug controller. Maybe it was something that Fred Jones had inspired in me, or maybe I was just sick of being pushed around all the time.

 _Panacea would step back. But I'm not Panacea right now. I'm Amelia Lavere. I'm Marquis' daughter. And Marquis never stepped back for_ _ **anyone**_ _._

Before I had quite realised what I was going to do, I had moved into his path. The kid was grinning; he had weight and height on me. One on one, he'd win a physical contest. Of course, that required me to give him one. I wasn't feeling that accommodating.

He was moving too fast to swerve around me, so he put out his arm to shove me aside or to push me over; I wasn't sure which. This let me grab his arm.

Normally, I took my time in getting an impression of someone's body, so I could be sure of getting all the information I needed. With this kid, I didn't bother. The instant that I connected with his biology, I made one tiny change. That was all that I had time for, before the heel of his hand collided with my breastbone. I went over backward, recalling belatedly to protect my head; it was still sore from yesterday.

The impact knocked the wind out of me; landing on my back did a more thorough job of it. I lay there, wheezing like an asthmatic, watching fuzzily as the purse-snatcher ran off down the Boardwalk.

"Oh my god! Are you all right?" It was the woman with the stroller. She knelt down beside me. "Did he hurt you?"

"'m fine." I concentrated on breathing, wondering why I seemed to be intent on collecting a whole set of new bruises. "Jus' winded."

"You were so brave, trying to stop him." She looked at me, concern in her face. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Uh huh," I grunted. "Help me up. Let's go get your bag back."

She grimaced. "No such luck. He's long gone."

"Maybe not. Help me up, please."

With her assistance, and using the rail to pull me up, I managed to get to my feet. Once I got upright, I realised we were about the same height. She had mousy brown hair and a worried look on her face. There was also something else that I noticed, but filed away for later attention. "Maybe you should sit down for a bit."

"I'll be fine," I assured her. Shading my eyes, I peered down the Boardwalk. "Isn't that him there?"

"What? Where?" She stared in the same direction.

"The guy there. Lying down." I started down the Boardwalk. "Come on, before someone else decides to pick up your purse."

"How did that happen?" she asked as she followed; I slowed down a little to allow for the stroller. "Did he trip or something?"

As we got closer, her confusion became more evident. It wasn't surprising; he was just lying there, as if he had just chosen to lie down and go to sleep.

"It's possible, I guess," I agreed, working to keep a straight face. "Is that your purse?"

"It is!" Swooping in, she snatched it up. Unzipping it, she checked through it, delight showing on her face. "Everything's here."

"Good." I knelt down beside the purse-snatcher and checked his pulse. It was steady and strong, although he wasn't waking up any time soon. Nor would he, until I chose otherwise. "Want to call the cops on this guy?"

She looked doubtful. "He's just a kid …"

"This wasn't his first bag-snatch," I pointed out. "He's been doing this for a while. And he'll keep on doing it, if someone doesn't give him a wake-up call. Pretty soon he'll be mugging people, and then someone might get hurt. With luck, it'll be him, but probably not."

"Hmm, true." Pulling a phone from her purse, she made the call. In the meantime, I took the opportunity to sit down on a nearby bench. Truth be told, I was still a little wobbly from the hard landing on the Boardwalk, and the hit I had taken the day before hadn't helped at all.

" … where Smith Street joins the Boardwalk," the lady with the stroller said, the phone held to one ear while she rolled the stroller back and forth reflexively with the other. "He's fallen and knocked himself out, I think. Yes, I'll wait here. Thank you."

She put the phone away and moved over to the bench; I made room for her. Not sure what to say next, I looked down at her child. "She's very cute," I offered, deciding that pink fittings and jumpsuit equalled baby girl.

"She's my world," she replied with a fond smile, directed mainly at the infant, before she became serious once more. "I want to thank you for trying to stop him. I'm just sorry you got hurt."

"I'll heal," I told her with a halfway grin at my own phrasing. "I think maybe I distracted him and he wasn't watching where he was going."

By the time I finished speaking, I realised that something had given me away. She was staring at me with a growing surmise in her eyes. "I know you, don't I?"

I didn't know whether to confirm or deny it. "I, uh -"

"You're with New Wave. The healer. Panacea." Her voice was certain.

"Well, yes and no," I said without much conviction in my voice.

She raised an eyebrow. "Well, that clears things up nicely."

"I, uh, that's me, but I'm kind of taking a break from being Panacea at the moment," I confessed. "I want to be _me_ before I can be Panacea again, but right now I don't know who _me_ is, so I'm trying to find out."

She nodded sympathetically. "Believe it or not, I understand how you feel. In a roundabout way." After a pause, her eyes widened and she looked over at the recumbent bag-snatcher. "Did you … do something to him? Is that why he isn't waking up?"

I felt something akin to panic. My power was 'heal anything except the brain'; that was the public perception, anyway. It pigeon-holed me in their eyes, but at the same time shielded me from awkward questions and requests.

People accepted that, especially after it was made public that I could cure cancer. And HIV for that matter, but cancer got all the publicity. I didn't see why; either way, it was just a matter of dealing with biology. Whatever the reason, it seemed that 'cures cancer' was a bigger deal than 'cures HIV', which seemed weird to me. It wasn't as though cancer was contagious.

But now I'd been caught out doing something that just didn't fit into the 'healer' model that the public understood. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. "I, uh, maybe?"

She looked back at me, taking in my expression in a moment. "You _did_ do something," she murmured. "Did you turn his brain off or something?"

"No – no!" I exclaimed. "I, uh, I can't do brains."

Which was a flat-out lie, but one that I held closely to. The only other person who knew that I _could_ do brains but _didn't_ was Vicky. She didn't really understand why I wanted it kept quiet, so I kind of hinted that it was complicated and I was scared of messing things up.

That was also a lie, of course. I knew exactly how to modify the brain to get the effect that I wanted. Worse, I knew that it would be _easy._ The reason I didn't want to start messing with brains was that I was scared I would never want to _stop_. We all wish that people would act the way we want them to; I could _make_ that happen. And it scared the hell out of me.

"Well, he doesn't seem to be waking up, and you don't seem to be worried that he will," she observed. "What _did_ you do?"

"I, uh, repurposed his adrenal glands," I confessed. "They don't produce epinephrine any more. Now they produce ketamine."

This wasn't exactly something that many people knew I could do. Nor was it something I advertised. Healing, yes. Remodelling no. But now it seemed that an impulsive act was going to let the cat out of the bag.

The expression on her face, however, wasn't accusatory or even judgemental. She seemed to be … approving. "I like it," she decided. "Very neat. He's excited, so his adrenals are pumping out at full capacity. The more excited he is, the faster the ketamine hits him."

I blinked. This was not what I had expected. "I, uh, I don't do this sort of thing very often. Or at all," I confessed.

One eyebrow hitched upward. "You picked a good time to start. From my point of view, anyway."

"Yeah, well." I nodded awkwardly. "I seem to be doing a lot of things recently that I normally wouldn't do."

She gave me a sympathetic look. "Want to talk about it?"

It struck me as incongruous that a total stranger on the Boardwalk would be the first person to actually _ask_ me that question, and want to hear the answer. I considered telling her about Fred, but decided that she might not get it, not if I left anything out. And I _really_ wasn't sure about telling her about Marquis. So I decided to cut to the chase.

"Okay. Long story short, my life got turned upside down. I met someone who … let's just say, I learned some really crucial information about who I am. And other stuff. So now, I feel the same as before, but everything else looks different. So it's really me that must have changed. People want me to be the same as I was before, but I don't _want_ to be that person any more. I want to be more. I want to find out who _me_ is, and be that person. Am I making sense? Because if I'm not, feel free to tell me." I stopped talking, hoping that my babbling hadn't scared her off.

She was staring at me, eyes just a little wider than normal. "Oh, you're making sense all right," she said. "I know exactly how you feel. I had my own life-changing experience a while ago. And I've been trying to figure out where I fit in. Because I certainly don't fit in where I was."

"You … you have?" I asked. "Can I ask -"

"What my experience was?" She smiled. "Can't you tell?" Leaning down to the stroller, she caressed the sleeping baby's cheek. "Having Aster changed my life utterly."

* * *

End of Part Five


	6. Chapter 6

**Hostage Situation**

* * *

Part Six: The Plot Thickens

* * *

 _[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]_

* * *

 **Dragonslayer Base, Toronto, Canada**

* * *

All was quiet, or nearly so, in the base. Mags had found some interesting fashion tips in a magazine; leaning back in her chair, she propped her boots up on the table and settled back for some good old-fashioned 'me' time. Geoff was working on something in the alcove that held the computer gear; if she listened hard, she could hear him hitting keys from time to time. Farther away, there was the occasional pop and crackle as Mischa worked on his armour; he'd said something earlier about re-welding a problematic seam. Ozone drifted out of the workshop, the smell bitter in the air.

Taking a sip from her coffee, Mags leaned back a little farther and turned the page of her magazine …

"Oh, you've got to be fucking _kidding_ me!"

The outburst, coming as unexpectedly as it did, caused her to react most unfortunately. She jerked and flailed, the magazine flying off to the side and flutter to the ground in a heap. If her boots had fallen from the table, she would have been fine, her loss of dignity minimal. But they didn't; instead, she instinctively straightened out, causing her chair to scoot sideways, out from under her.

"Shit!" she blurted, just before she landed heavily on her butt on the wooden floorboards. A moment later, a waterfall of coffee cascaded over the edge of the table to form a pool beside her.

Grimacing, she rolled painfully sideways until she could stand up.

Mischa came pounding in from the workshop, the welding mask tilted back on his head. "What is happening?" the burly Russian demanded. "I heard shouting and banging. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," grunted Mags, as she rubbed her sore butt. "Mostly, anyway. Geoff, what the _fuck_ was that all about?" Along with Mischa, she turned her gaze to the leader of the Dragonslayers, who was currently hunched over the main monitor for checking on Dragon's activities.

Saint turned toward them, eyes glinting with anger, then hooked his thumb at the screen. "Take a look," he gritted. "I managed to decrypt that file."

"O … kay," Mags replied, still not quite sure what had precipitated the outburst. Geoff, as a rule, didn't shout very much. Something had to have him really worked up. Leaning past him, she used the mouse to click the 'play' option.

At first, there was no picture, only an odd buzzing sound. Then a distorted human voice, booming from the speakers. _" … … not hear … ly. … … hear is … zzing with … tervals in between."_

" _Can you hear me now?"_ This was a different voice, one that was very familiar to Mags.

"Dragon?" She asked the question out loud.

"Yes, now shut up. This isn't the important bit," Geoff said impatiently.

A little hurt, Mags started listening again. She was just in time to hear the unknown voice ask more or less the same question, and have it confirmed. Part of her wanted to ask why Dragon was talking to someone inside the Birdcage; more importantly, who was she talking to? But Geoff didn't seem to be in the mood to enlighten her. _He should be happier. This is flat-out proof that Dragon's defeating her programming safeguards._

And then she heard the words _" … passing you on to Director Costa-Brown,"_ and her eyes opened very wide indeed. "The _fuck?"_ she blurted. _What the_ _ **fuck**_ _is the Chief Director of the PRT doing talking to a Birdcage inmate? With Dragon's help?_

"Shh!" she heard from both Geoff and Mischa. She shut up, and they all leaned closer to listen.

Costa-Brown was indeed talking to someone in the Birdcage. That 'someone' turned out to be Marquis; Mags had never been to Brockton Bay, but she'd heard of the man. The wobbly picture showing on the screen even matched pictures she'd seen, if she mentally removed the beard and the greying hair. But the focus of the conversation wasn't about him … it was about his _daughter._ Fascinated, Mags kept listening. The daughter in question had been adopted by … _who?_

 _Holy shit, New Wave adopted the kid of the villain they sent to the Birdcage?_

 _Holy fucking hell, she's_ _ **Panacea**_ _?_

That was beyond surprising. It was _astonishing._ Panacea, who would otherwise have been seen as drab and invisible next to her glory-hunting sister, had an _international_ reputation for being the girl who could heal any injury, cure any disease, even roll back someone's age. _And she's a supervillain's daughter? Fuck_ _ **me.**_

Costa-Brown was still talking to Marquis. And that was when Mags heard the thing that had caused Geoff's outburst. _"Until you are released from the Birdcage, she will cease her healing activities altogether."_

Almost unbidden, her hand grabbed the mouse and clicked the file to pause it. "Did you guys just hear what I heard?"

" _Da_ , I heard," Mischa replied at once. Geoff didn't say anything; he just looked pissed as hell.

Mags clutched at her head, trying to shake sense into her own brain. "How can this even be happening? She's a fucking _hero,_ for fuck's sake!"

"No." Geoff''s voice was low and controlled. "She's a villain. Her father's a villain, she's a villain. If she's willing to hold her power over people to get him released, then she's no hero." He stood up abruptly and paced back and forth. "Worse, she's got Costa-Brown at least talking about it. And Costa-Brown _can order Dragon to do it._ Dragon's already sent that communication system into the Birdcage on her orders."

"But it's against the _law!"_ Mags almost wailed the last word. She had been a police officer for years; even with all the cynicism that she'd picked up along the way, she still considered that there was a line, however faint it might still be.

"The Chief Director, she maybe says what rules are?" suggested Mischa. He shrugged massively. "If she says is legal, then Dragon does it. No conflict."

Geoff sat back down in the chair and ran his hands through his already-disarranged hair. "Fuck. I don't know what to think."

Pulling up a chair to face him, Mags captured his hands then sat down, still holding him. "Talk to me, love. Tell me what you're thinking."

"Right. Right. Right." He took a deep breath. "If we're to believe what Costa-Brown is saying, Dragon can let people out if she really feels like it. I don't like that idea. I _really_ don't like that fucking idea." His face twisted into a grimace. "Because you just _know_ that she'll probably get it into that mess of silicon chips that she calls a brain that it will be a good idea to release the _wrong_ people. All it'll take is one safeguard failing, just once."

"The wrong people, love?" Mags squeezed his hands gently, prompting him to go on. "Who are the _right_ people, then?"

"Well, Teacher, for one," Geoff said. "He can give me a boost so I can keep up with Dragon. Her code's getting more complex all the time. I have trouble reading it, these days. Every day, I worry that it's found a way around the safeguards that _I don't know about."_

A chill went down her back. _Oh, shit. He's still obsessed with the guy._ Ever since Geoff had gone to Teacher for the first treatment, he'd been a little ... different. She had hoped that after Teacher went to the Birdcage that Geoff gotten over whatever effect the asshole had on him, but that was obviously not the case.

"Well, we know that Dragon's not free of the safeguards quite yet," she pointed out carefully. "Otherwise she would have been letting people out of the Birdcage to cover her own actions." Turning her head slightly, she met Mischa's eyes. He nodded back to her, his own expression worried. _He noticed it, too. Now, we've got to try to talk Geoff down._

Oblivious to the byplay, Geoff nodded, seeming to calm down a little. "Okay, we need to learn more. We need to know what's going on. And we definitely need to find out if they're going to cave in and let that scary bastard out of the Birdcage." Even ten years later and in another country, Marquis' name still had the power to evoke fear. "And if we can leverage that to get Teacher out."

"Birdcage is like inescapable gulag, yes?" Mischa scratched his chin through his beard. "Is no getting out for good behaviour."

All of a sudden, Mags wasn't as certain about that as she once was. Reaching across, she took hold of the mouse. "I think we need to watch the rest of this file."

"Yeah," agreed Saint. "Good idea." He took Mags' hand and squeezed it as she clicked the mouse button.

* * *

 **Cauldron Base  
Some Other Earth**

* * *

Alexandria sighed to herself. _Why did I even think that this might go smoothly?_ "David, please calm down. You're overreacting."

Eidolon threw up his hands. "Why did you even say that to her? Now she thinks there might be a way to get him out!" His heavy eyebrows knotted together as he glared at her. "The _last_ thing we want is for the public getting ideas like that about the Birdcage."

"Dave, chill," Legend suggested. Like Eidolon, he was unmasked, although his expression wasn't as unhappy as the other hero's. "She never made any hard and fast promises, and these _are_ reasonably unique circumstances."

"Unique is _one_ way to put it," said the Number Man, twirling a pen in his fingers. Despite the fact that he never looked at it, the writing implement spun in an intricate dance back and forth, back and forth.

Eidolon humphed out an aggravated breath. "We've had villains try to blackmail the government into letting people out of the Birdcage before. It never ended well for them then. Why are we even considering it now?"

"Because Panacea's not a villain?" Legend's tone was light, but his expression was more serious. "She's been using her powers to help the public for three years now. Like us, she's not charging for it. Unlike us, she doesn't get paid by the government. It's not actually illegal for her to suddenly set a condition for the resumption of her healing activities."

"But releasing a vicious criminal like Marquis?" Eidolon shook his head, his entire body language rejecting what Legend had to say. "Breaking someone out of jail is a crime, and so is advocating that someone else do it."

Alexandria shook her head, knowing that she had to step in again. "If the PRT releases him from the Birdcage, then that _isn't_ breaking him out, because we're only going to do it _legally,_ once we've discussed it with the relevant governmental bodies."

Legend nodded. "The most she's doing is petitioning for his release, which is perfectly legal. Petitioning really, really hard, but still only petitioning." He shrugged. "I can kind of see her point. Family is important, after all. And so are second chances."

The Number Man chuckled dryly. "Very true. And you think that he would stick to the straight and narrow once he was released?" He turned his chair slightly, addressing the question to the fifth person in the room.

Contessa had been leaning back in her chair, apparently not paying attention to the discussion. But now she looked up. "Provided he isn't provoked or otherwise pushed back into a life of crime, he will. I have several Paths where he may be useful to our aims. Of course, if his daughter is harmed or killed, we can essentially kiss Brockton Bay goodbye."

"Which is what I'm talking about!" Eidolon was back in full swing. "He's a dangerous man! Why bend over backward to pander to the demands of one teenage girl who isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things?" His power flexed around him, half-seen auras growing and then collapsing into nothingness.

"She's more important than you think," Alexandria pointed out. "The only reason that she isn't better known locally is that her older sister is Glory Girl. But can you name three parahumans whose names are known on the international level, who _aren't_ Protectorate?" She paused, saw Eidolon opening his mouth, and knew what he was going to say. "Or villains, for that matter?" she added hastily.

Eidolon glared at her. "It's still stupid," he growled. "We're opening ourselves to a huge backlash. We let this go through, it'll be the first of many."

"If we deny her and she goes public with her healing strike, the backlash is likely to be worse," Alexandria said. "Yes, I _know_ that she hasn't healed that many people when compared to the general population. No one person could, even if they went without sleep and rest. But she's _tried._ And more to the point, she's a symbol of hope. People are aware that there _is_ someone in the world who can heal the worst injuries and illnesses in the world. She's a literal cure for cancer." She looked around at the others in the room. "Symbols are valuable, too."

"Also, Endbringers," Legend noted. "If she stops healing capes injured in those battles, the practice of injured capes suing first responders if they don't do everything perfectly will come back in. With her still around, we get more capes back on their feet, which means we have more capes ready for the next attack."

"I tend to agree," the Number Man said. "I believe that having her on side, healing when and where she can, is better than the world knowing that Panacea has hung up the cape. Or the burqa. Whatever it is that she wears." He tapped the pen on the table. "All in favour?"

"Well, of course." Alexandria held up her hand.

"I think it's a good idea." Legend echoed her action.

"I believe that it's a step in the right direction." Contessa didn't raise her hand, but she nodded instead. "Consider me in."

Eidolon sat there, glowering at the rest of them. "This is a bad idea. You know it is."

"Since when have we let that stop us?" The Number Man's voice was light. "If we stepped back from every problematic decision, we would never get anything done."

"David." Alexandria made her voice firm. "We need your decision. Are you going to support us, or at least not oppose us in this?" She searched his face.

He scowled heavily. "I won't oppose you. But if he becomes any sort of a problem, then I _will_ deal with him. One way or the other." Standing, he picked up his glowing green mask from the table and put it on. "For the record, I think you're all making a big mistake."

"And I believe that we aren't. Or at least, not as big a mistake as shutting Panacea down would be." Alexandria's voice was blunt as she addressed Eidolon. "Yes, I understand that it's not an ideal solution. But sometimes there _are_ no ideal solutions."

He didn't answer her; at least, not directly. Turning away from the table, he spoke three words: "Door to Houston." The portal opened directly in front of him, and he stepped through. It was only after the portal closed behind him that the awkward silence ended.

"Well," murmured Legend. _"That_ happened." He stood and stretched. "Think he'll do something rash?"

"We can only hope not," Alexandria replied, although she didn't sound happy. "Contessa?"

"I can't be sure," the Cauldron enforcer said. "But I don't think he will. Though I wouldn't be surprised if he blows off steam for a while by cracking down on local crime. It's about to take a sudden dip."

"Fortunately," Alexandria said, "that's not our problem to deal with." She stood as well, gathering her cape around herself. "Meeting concluded. Contessa, if you could stay behind for a moment?"

Legend left via a portal of his own, while the Number Man simply opened the door and walked out. Alexandria looked at Contessa, who looked back at her. "You know what I'm going to ask you."

Contessa nodded. "Yes."

Just for a moment, Alexandria shut her eyes. _I wish she wouldn't answer like that._ But of course Contessa knew that, and probably enjoyed her little joke all the more because of it. _So I'm correct. It is Saint screwing with Dragon again._ "Did he get the footage?"

"He did." Contessa stood up. "He won't be a problem."

Which meant that either he didn't intend to cause problems, or that Contessa would counter anything he tried. Either way, it was out of Alexandria's hands. The last thing they needed was a scandal implicating the PRT with, basically, anything. "Good."

The last thing she saw before stepping into her own portal was the slight smile on Contessa's face. Saint, if he tried anything cute, was going to have a very bad day indeed.

Somehow, Alexandria was fine with that.

* * *

 **Boardwalk**

* * *

Kayden leaned back against the seat, watching Amy Dallon – _Panacea! -_ hold Aster carefully. For a teenager, Amy seemed to be pretty good at it, making sure to support the baby's head while cooing gently at her. For her part, Aster gurgled right back, reaching out to grasp at Amy's fingers with her own chubby little digits. The look of tenderness that filled Amy's face surprised Kayden a little, but not totally. It looked like her infant was well on the way to winning the teen's heart.

 _Meanwhile, I'm an ex-supervillain and she's a superhero, so there's that._ Somehow, she had no problem looking past the 'hero' aspect and seeing the girl underneath. Amy had seemed reserved at first, almost withdrawn, but she seemed to be opening up a little. If only to make silly baby noises back at Aster.

"So that guy will wake up again?" she asked at length. The question wasn't bothering her all that much, though she was pretty sure she wouldn't mention the episode to Kaiser even if she saw him. She didn't want some poor dumb purse snatcher to end up crucified for her sake.

"Yeah," Amy assured her. "I normalised his adrenals while you were talking to the cops. Thanks for covering for me like that, by the way. If it went out on the scanner that I was on the Boardwalk stopping crime in plain clothes, I'd have New Wave descending on me in about ten seconds flat." She shook her head gently, rubbing her face on Aster's tummy. "I couldn't have that, could I? No, I couldn't have that." The gentle tone of her words belied the meaning behind them; Aster gurgled happily and played with her hair.

"Well, no, I suppose not," Kayden agreed, a little amused. Amy seemed to be well and truly taken by Aster, and the reverse was also true. "She really likes you. Not that I blame her."

"I like her too," Amy said, looking up at Kayden. "I get to meet lots of kids, but ninety-nine percent of them are in paediatric wards, and I don't get to spend time with them when they're healthy. It's nice just to sit down and spend time with her." There was more going on than what she was saying, but the main thing that Kayden picked up on was the longing tone in her voice.

However, she didn't want to scare the girl off, so she didn't say what she was thinking immediately. Fortunately, she had another ready-made tack to go on with. "So, I never thanked you properly for saving my bag."

"Oh, uh, I don't want money for that," Amy protested immediately, almost automatically. "I'm a hero. It's kind of what I'm supposed to do." But there was a tone of doubt underlaying her words, which got Kayden's attention.

"Well, okay, hero," Kayden said with more than a little amusement, "how about we go and have some ice cream? Would that be sufficient to make it not a payment of actual money?"

"Well, um …" Amy rocked Aster and frowned slightly. The baby made spit bubbles and pawed at her frizzy brown hair. Looking down at the infant, she let a smile creep across her face. "Okay, you talked me into it."

 _More like Aster twisted your arm,_ Kayden thought with a smile. _But I'm not arguing._ Standing up, she ensured that her purse was securely slung over her shoulder. "Do you want to carry her, or put her back in the stroller?"

"I'll put her in the stroller," Amy decided, though it seemed to have been a close contest. "But I'll push the stroller, if that's okay?"

Kayden chuckled at the hopeful tone of her voice. "I have no trouble with that, believe me. I love her dearly, but she can get very heavy if I'm carrying her everywhere."

Amy crouched beside the stroller, carefully fitting Aster into the restraints. "Which is why they invented strollers." She tickled the baby, eliciting delighted chuckles. "There, that should do it."

"You're very good with babies," Kayden observed as they set off down the Boardwalk. "Have you had much experience? Apart from the paediatric cases, I mean?"

"Not really." Amy shook her head. "I didn't even really think I liked them, till I met Aster. She's just adorable. I mean, I'm not interested in having kids any time soon, and I don't think I ever will, but if I did have any, I'd want them to be like Aster." She glanced at Kayden. "I hope that doesn't sound creepy or anything."

"No." Kayden chuckled warmly. "I can relate to that exactly. I can't see anything wrong with wanting other babies to be like my baby." She gave Amy a pat on the arm. "I hope you do have the chance to have a child of your own someday, and that they make you as happy as Aster does me."

Amy didn't say anything, but her smile had a certain wistfulness about it.

* * *

 **Dragonslayer Base  
Mags**

* * *

" _Love you too, pum-"_ The picture abruptly broke up, the sound dissolving into static. Mags sat back, her mind awhirl. That had been entirely too intense for her comfort. She hadn't been able to see Panacea or Glory Girl, but the raw emotion between Panacea and her ten-years-removed father had wrenched at her heart-strings in a way that she had not felt in some time.

"Well, damn." Geoff broke into her musings, a speculative tone in his voice. "Looks like they're really going to do it, doesn't it?"

"Yes." Mischa didn't say any more, which made Mags wonder what the big Russian was thinking.

"Excellent." Saint sounded almost happy. This was a change from his original attitude, but Mags didn't have a chance to ask before he went on. "This means that they're really thinking about it, which proves that they can actually fucking do it. Which means that all this 'no way out' bullshit is just a bluff."

"Except that they're the only ones who know how to get someone out," Mags said, trying to strike the note of 'voice of sanity'. "So this leaves us back at square one." For all that she knew Dragon could not attack their suits directly, she had no desire to attempt to breach the Birdcage. Automated defences would kill them just as dead. Or, for all she knew, knock them out and put them in the Birdcage, powerless, with a bunch of psychotic capes. _Fuck. That._

And that was even if it weren't Teacher they were trying to free. She had never trusted the ugly, sweaty little man, and following Teacher's assassinations of public figures, she felt she was vindicated. _He can stay in there for all of me. There's no way I'm letting him near Geoff again._

"You're not getting it," Geoff said impatiently. "They've already communicated with him once; if they're going to get him out, they're going to have to do it again. Once they do that, I can hijack the nanobot control system. By the time Dragon gets to the Birdcage and manually shuts down the link, I'll have time to use it to send a message to Teacher and let him know what's going on."

Mags looked at him askance. "Okay, I get that bit, but how does that translate to them letting Teacher out?" _Please don't have a hairbrained scheme ..._

He grinned, showing teeth. "That's the genius part. Thanks to this, we know that Panacea's so valuable to them that they'll let someone out of the Birdcage rather than lose access to her healing ability, right?"

It took a moment for Mags to understand, then her eyes opened wide. "No. Seriously, Geoff. Please tell me that you're not thinking of taking Panacea hostage to force them to let Teacher out of the Birdcage." _Christ, it's worse than I thought._

" _Da_ , what she said _,"_ Mischa said hurriedly. "Do not be kidnapping the healer that the PRT thinks so much of." He took a deep breath and composed himself. "Much shit will fall upon our heads from a very great height if you do this."

"But it's _Teacher,"_ Geoff said urgently. "Don't you get it? If I can get access to him, I can get right back into Dragon's code! I'll finally know what that bucket of chips is _thinking._ She's got to be working on _something_ to fuck us all over, and we need every advantage we can get to get out in front of whatever it is."

Mags nodded, trying to think of the best way to dissuade him. "Yes, love, I do understand all that. But let's please _not_ kidnap the teenage girl who can cure _cancer._ If we do that, and she gets so much as a hang-nail, it'll be a kill order for all of us."

"Even worse," Mischa put in. "You have seen her sister, the girl of glory? She is Alexandria package who does not pull punches. Mother has lightsaber like in Star Wars, father throws bombs. Uncle is giant from fairy tale, aunt and cousins fly _and_ have zap lasers. Our armour is good, but against them we are walnut against hammer. _Ебааааать, дружище_. Please do not be inciting war we cannot win against scary cape family."

 _Fuuuuck_ _ **,**_ _mate._ Mags knew enough Russian from Mischa to understand that part, and she knew the burly man well enough to know that his thicker accent was due to agitation. Mischa _really did not want_ to go up against New Wave. Well, that was fine. Nor did Mags. Especially not for Teacher's sake. However, the trick was going to be convincing Geoff that it was a bad idea. _This is going to be an uphill battle._

"If they can't find us, they can't attack us," Geoff argued. "Look, this is literally the opportunity of a lifetime, but the window slams shut the moment they get him out. Dragon won't be sending communication nanobots into the Birdcage any more, and with that scary bastard alongside Panacea, getting hold of her will be a fuck-ton more difficult."

He turned abruptly and hurried to a bookshelf, and pulled out an atlas. "Check it out. Less than five hundred miles as the crow flies. We head over under cover of darkness, wait till she separates from the rest of her family, grab her up and come on back. Then all we gotta do is tell the PRT that all they've got to do to get her back is let Teacher out. After that it's just details."

Mags snatched the atlas from his hands and slammed it shut. "No! Geoff, it's a _stupid fucking idea._ We are not kidnapping Panacea!" _And we're definitely_ _ **not**_ _freeing Teacher._

"Why the fuck _not?"_ Geoff turned toward her, his face creased with frustration. "There's nobody else who's that important that we can grab!"

Mags rolled her eyes. "How about the President? No, wait, parahuman Secret Service plus kill order if we _do_ succeed." Her tone was heavily sarcastic toward the end.

"Perhaps head of PRT?" suggested Mischa. "She is important, but no Secret Service to protect." Mags shot him a quick glance; he gave her a fractional shrug. _Even Geoff isn't that much of an idiot. Is he?_

"Don't be stupid," Geoff snapped, proving that he still had _some_ self-preservation instincts. "That's the best way to get the _entire_ Protectorate on our asses. And Alexandria's pretty smart. I don't want _her_ up in my grille." He shook his head. "I'd like to _survive_ this mission."

"And that's the exact same reaction you'll get if you kidnap Panacea," Mags insisted, trying to get through to him. "Only worse, because Director Costa-Brown _can't cure cancer."_

"No." Geoff was adamant, though Mags couldn't tell whether he was trying to convince her or himself. "She's not Protectorate. They won't throw the resources into finding her that they would their precious Chief Director."

Mags took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. "Geoff."

When she opened them, he was looking at her expectantly. "Yes?"

Despite her resolve, she paused for a moment to muster her thoughts. "You know I was in law enforcement before we started doing … this." She waved around at the base surrounding them.

"Well, yes," he agreed. "It's how we got into Richter's black box. But you were Fisheries and Oceans, not the police." There was a slightly defensive tone to his voice.

"True," she said. "I was never police. I never worked a kidnapping case. But I heard stories. And I need to ask you this, right here and right now. Suppose we manage to kidnap Panacea. We get away clean. They don't track us down." Which she highly doubted, knowing the resources that the Protectorate could bring to bear.

"Okay …" he said warily. "Let's assume that. What's your point?"

"My point is this. We have her. We make our demands; release Teacher from the Birdcage and we let Panacea go. But some stuffed-shirt bureaucrat gets up in arms and refuses. Flat-out says no. It's impossible. Tells us that we may as well release Panacea now, because it's not going to happen." She paused, watching his face to see his reaction.

It wasn't long in coming. "But they _won't,"_ he protested, his face twisting in a grimace. "Panacea's too valuable. They'll deal. They _have_ to."

"But what if they _don't?"_ She pressed on. "Suppose Costa-Brown suggests it and is fired by the President, and her replacement says hell, _no._ What are you going to do then? Release Panacea? Or start sending them fingers to prove that you're serious?"

For a moment she thought that she'd gotten through to him, but then his expression hardened. "And so what if we have to? We're trying to save the goddamn _world_ from a dangerous machine, here! It's for the greater good."

Grabbing him by the front of his shirt, Mags dragged him down until he was face to face with her. "You listen to me, Geoff Pellick." Her voice was a dangerous hiss. "The _moment_ you start seriously considering mutilating an innocent teenage girl for the sake of the 'greater good' is the moment I start wondering what we're even doing on the same team. I've performed some criminal acts in the name of the cause, but abducting and harming kids is a line I am _not_ going to cross. Do you understand me?"

Tense at first, Geoff slowly relaxed. "Yeah, sorry. I got kind of carried away. But what do we do instead? Threaten Dragon with Ascalon? 'Release Teacher or you die'?"

Mischa shook his head. "That will not work. She is bound to follow laws. And at worst, we kill her, what then? Teacher still trapped in Birdcage." He spread his large hands. "Is best to drop this, I think. Teacher is not worth it."

Geoff grimaced as Mags let him go. "You're right. Both of you. It's too risky." He rubbed his chin. "Though now I'm wondering if we can't blackmail the PRT with the footage we have. The public would _love_ to hear about something like this."

Mags shared a glance with Mischa. They both shrugged at the same time, then the woman turned back to Geoff. "That's actually a workable plan. I know we can dissuade Dragon from doing a traceback, but that won't stop anyone else, so don't get careless, all right?" _I highly doubt that it'll work, but if it keeps him busy, that's a good thing._

He gave her the devil-may-care grin that she had fallen in love with, all those years ago. "Hey, I might be a little obsessive over the subject, but I'm not _stupid."_

Unfortunately, my love, when it comes to Teacher, that's exactly what you are.

Putting her arms around him, Mags laid her head on his chest. "Sometimes I worry about you, that's all. I know we're fighting a war, but there's such a thing as going too far." _Especially where Teacher is concerned._

He stroked her hair, then lifted her chin for a kiss. "I know, and I appreciate that you're here to keep me in line." Lowering his voice, he continued. "Want to bring the massage oil to bed tonight? I want to show you how much I love you."

"Ooh yes." Smiling, she kissed him again, the warmth of anticipation spreading throughout her body. "I can definitely go with that."

 _Thank god,_ she told herself. _He's seen sense._ She paused for a moment. _Or maybe not.  
_  
Looking past him at Mischa, she flicked her eyes toward the workshop and made a cut-off motion with her hand behind Geoff's back. The large Russian nodded, and ambled nonchalantly in that direction. _Good. Mischa can lock down Geoff's armour until we can talk him out of this idiocy._

* * *

 **Boardwalk**

* * *

"Mmm, this is good." Amy leaned back against her seat, blissfully nibbling at her ice cream. Kayden – she had introduced herself on the walk over – sat at the far end of the same seat, with Aster's stroller between them. The baby was wrapped up a little more against the night's chill, happily burbling to herself in the stroller. Occasionally she reached out toward the iridescent soap bubble that was the force field over the Protectorate base in the bay, but didn't seem more than mildly disappointed that she couldn't grab it.

"It is." Aster's mother was carefully eating a sundae, which she was apparently enjoying just as much as Amy was appreciating the ice cream. "You're acting like you don't get to do this much."

Amy noted again that Kayden was quite perceptive. Or maybe it was just a mom thing. She shrugged. "I guess I don't. Being Panacea's not quite a full-time thing, but I think I've been pushing myself too hard now, and I didn't realise it because nobody really called me on it until today." _And he's in the Birdcage,_ she noted. _What does this say about my so-called friends and family?_

"That doesn't sound healthy at all," Kayden observed. "Do you want to talk about it? I can lend a sympathetic ear, and I'll throw in any advice I can think of for free."

"I don't want to load you down with my problems," Amy protested, though the chance to talk to someone who didn't have a stake in the situation suddenly sounded very attractive.

"You saved my handbag today," Kayden pointed out. "Buying you an ice-cream doesn't even begin to cover that. I can listen to your woes and agree just how mean people are being to you, if you want. It doesn't cost me anything. And it's not like you've got a secret identity to worry about." The grin she gave Amy made her look about sixteen, and awoke a reluctant answering smile from the biokinetic.

"Well, okay then," Amy decided, thinking hard about what she was going to say. "I'm adopted, but you probably had that figured out already." At Kayden's encouraging nod, she went on. "I found out a while ago that my dad's actually a supervillain. You've probably never heard of him, but he's been in prison for the last ten years. Anyway, I ran into an old minion of his …"

As she told the story, eliding over the more sensitive details, Kayden listened entranced, and Aster gurgled happily in her stroller.

* * *

 **Dragonslayer Base  
Much Later That Night**

* * *

Mags rolled over in bed, feeling the deep contentment that came from a good solid back massage from Geoff. She had responded to his advances, and they had made love until late in the evening; afterward, as usually happened, she had dropped into a deep and dreamless sleep. But now the glass of wine she had imbibed before the massage was making itself known, so she had to get up.

Trying not to disturb Geoff, she disentangled herself from the sheets and went to sit up, but her hand went down in the middle of his back. Or where the middle of his back would have been, if he had still been in bed.

"Geoff?" she murmured sleepily. _He must be going to the bathroom too._ Stumbling out of bed, she snagged a bathrobe and made her way to the bathroom, but he wasn't there either. That worked for her; she sat down and relieved herself. She was halfway back to bed when her brain started working. _Where is he?_

Entering the bedroom, she turned the light on, to find the bed entirely empty. Small stirrings of alarm were going off in the back of her mind by now. Belting the bathrobe around her waist, she headed out into the main area. _Maybe he's spying on Dragon again?_ But no, he wasn't at the console. Data, of course, ran over the multiple screens, showing what the AI was up to.

But Mags had no eyes for that. What caught her attention was the sheet of paper taped to the keyboard. Turning on the light, she picked up the sheet and read it. Adrenaline kicked her brain into high gear; with the paper still clutched in her hand, she dashed for the workshop.

"Fuuuuuck!" she screamed. "Mischa! Get up!" Not hesitating for a moment, she slapped her hand on the red button inside the workshop door, which sent an alarm clanging through every room of the base. She wasn't sure what its original intention had been for, but it was a useful way of getting everyone up and awake.

Moments later, the big Russian showed up. His beard was in wild disarray and he wore a pair of boxers luridly printed with bright pink hearts. However, he also hefted a large assault rifle in one hand, and he looked awake and ready for action. "What is it, Mags? Where is Geoff?"

"Gone," she said bitterly, holding out the paper. "I thought you locked his suit down!"

"I did!" he protested. She pointed silently at the empty space where his suit had been, and the opened-up shells of their two suits, trailing components. " ... oh. Son of _bitch._ He cannibalised our suits to bypass. Very sneaky. I will break fingers when I find." He took the sheet and read it. "' _I'm sorry, but this is the only way. Carry out the blackmail mission as a distraction. If you can get Teacher released, I'll let Panacea go unharmed. Geoff.'"_ Pausing, he stared at her. "What do we do now?"

The curl of her lip was almost a snarl. "We're going to repair my suit, then you're going to stay here and run mission control."

He blinked stupidly at her. "But what will you be doing, if I am to be doing that?"

"Going after my idiot husband and saving him from himself." She turned and stomped into the workshop. "Whether he likes it or not."

* * *

End of Part Six


End file.
